


Paved With Good Intentions: Results

by SadieYuki



Series: Paved With Good Intentions: A Choose Your Own Adventure Tarsus IV fic [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Child Abuse, Choose Your Own Adventure, Gen, Tarsus IV, torture of a child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 12:13:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7532302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SadieYuki/pseuds/SadieYuki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."</em>
</p><p>When tragedy strikes, there are hundreds of moving parts that shift in ways we may never know or understand. We have control over just a few of those parts, and we make the best decisions we think are possible when faced with a fork in the road, and even then we can be left in the dark over just what those choices mean for our future.</p><p>Tarsus IV is no different. It will take a lot of rational thinking and luck for JT Kirk to get to the end of this adventure.</p><p>(Choose Your Own Adventure: Tumblr Voting Results)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paved With Good Intentions: Results

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone.
> 
> For the past couple months, I've been running a Choose Your Own Adventure: Tarsus IV fic event on Tumblr, where after each part, readers could vote on whatever decision needed to be made, and the story would progress from there. This here is the result of those votes.
> 
> Sometime in the future, I will be writing out every possible path and you'll get to play your own Adventure, so if you don't agree with the choices made here, your time will come. Subscribe to this series so you'll know when the full Adventure is available :)
> 
> For now, here is the path chosen by the voters on Tumblr.
> 
> Enjoy!

The high of adrenaline was rapidly fading as Jimmy sat in a holding cell waiting for Frank to pick him up. Luckily, Sam had been accurate when he said the car belonged to their father, so as much as Frank wanted to press charges for destruction of property, he was without the legal right. That right went to his mother, who was currently on assignment near the Plexion Nebula. They'd sent a message to her asking what she'd like done about the situation, but in the meantime he was allowed to go home.

Under Frank's supervision.

The cop said he wouldn't be arrested, but being released to Frank's custody after what he did would probably be worse.

Jimmy had no idea what he'd been thinking. He was upset over Sam's departure, and when he heard Frank’s offhand comment about how he was gonna make a fortune off the car, that was it. When those keys fell into his lap, he moved almost on autopilot.

But he had no plan. Sam must have known what he was doing, he had a bag packed and everything. But Jimmy had no idea what to do once he hit the road. He hadn't brought anything with him, where was he planning on going? And when the cop started following him...it was just a rush of panic. The plan was never to crash the car; maybe it was just to get it as far away from Frank as physically possible.

Technically he succeeded in that.

Jimmy straightened unconsciously as he heard footsteps echo in the hallway, a pair of them steadily approaching his cell.

“Kid, you're free to go,” the officer said as they approached.

If the carefully contained look of fury on Frank's face behind him was any indication, Jimmy didn't think ‘free’ was the right word.

Jimmy opened his mouth to speak—what exactly, he didn't know—but Frank cut him off with a sharp, “Don't you dare say a word. Do you have _any_ idea how much that car was worth?”

“I think the important thing here is that Jimmy is safe,” the officer said placatingly. Jimmy would have snorted if he didn't think he would get in more trouble.

Frank looked like he wanted to say something to that as well, but he was smart enough not to make such comments in front of a cop.

In less time than Jimmy would have liked, papers had been signed and processed, and he was out the door with Frank, a painful grip on his shoulders steering him towards Frank's pickup.

Frank opened the backseat door and shoved Jimmy none too gently inside. Jimmy had the wild thought of trying to escape through the opposite door, but even as he reached for the handle, Frank said, “Don’t bother, the doors are child locked. Don’t bother with the windows either.”

_Shit._

The ride home was silent, which Jimmy knew was only a bad thing. Frank’s hands were gripping the wheel with white knuckles, the only visible sign of his anger that he could see.

As fear bubbled in Jimmy’s gut, he found that he still didn’t regret what he did. After all, Frank had no right to sell his father’s car. If his father wasn’t here to drive it and if his mother didn’t want it, then it deserved to rest at the bottom of the quarry; as dead as his father.

Sam had asked him how to be a Kirk in this household just a few hours prior. The more he thought about it, the more Jimmy thought this might qualify; standing up to do the right thing, protecting the interests of others when they can’t do it themselves, regardless of the cost to oneself.

And Jimmy knew the cost for this would be high.

_‘Show me how to do that, and I’ll stay.’_

If only he could’ve shown Sam before he left.

The car pulled into the driveway, and Jimmy could almost hear the clock tick in his mind, counting down to his doom. He didn’t think he was being dramatic. Frank was _mad._ His only saving grace was that Frank surely wouldn’t kill him. How would he explain that to his mother? Of course, he could always claim that Jimmy had left with Sam…

_Fuck._

Jimmy didn’t remember when Frank got out of the truck, but suddenly the car door opened next to him and a hand wrapped around his upper arm and tugged hard. Jimmy was glad he hadn’t remembered to put his seatbelt on in his anxiousness, otherwise that pull would’ve been much more painful. As it was, he stumbled out of the vehicle, Frank’s grip the only thing keeping him on his feet.

Frank guided him towards the house, and Jimmy had barely stepped one foot inside before a hard shove from behind forced him to the ground. The door snapped shut even as he scrambled onto his back, attempting to shuffle away as Frank advanced on him.

“Do you have _any_ idea how much money you’ve cost me?” Frank growled. “That car was worth a _fortune—”_

“It wasn’t yours to sell!” Jimmy snapped even as he bumped into the wall behind him. “It was Dad’s—!”

A foot buried itself in Jimmy’s gut, and he struggled to breathe as the air was forced out of him. “Your dad isn’t here, is he?” Another kick landed before Jimmy had recovered, and he curled in on himself in an attempt to protect his midsection, but Frank just focused his efforts elsewhere. His back, his arms, his legs, nothing was spared from Frank’s assault.

“I’m sorry!” Jimmy wailed when he finally got his breath back. “I didn’t mean to crash it, I—!” Frank stomped on his side and Jimmy screamed as he felt a rib crack.

“Should’ve thought of that earlier, you little fucker,” Frank said, leaning down and grabbing Jimmy’s hair to force his head up. A weak cry escaped Jimmy as he felt roots separate from his scalp. “I’m done with you, ya hear me? I don’t care what your mother says, I’m done. I should’ve done this a long time ago.”

Jimmy didn’t have time to contemplate what Frank meant by that before a strong backhand knocked his head into the wall behind him and everything went dark.

* * *

Jimmy awoke to the sound of a mechanical hum. It was faint, and it didn’t seem to be coming from any particular direction. As he rolled over, he immediately became aware of the pain throbbing throughout his body. The back and side of his head felt like a nail had been hammered in each, and his midsection felt uncomfortable no matter how he turned. The rest of him felt almost achy in comparison.

Jimmy let out a groan. At least he was lying on something more comfortable than the floor, but this felt a little more stiff compared to his bed, and there weren’t enough broken springs to be his couch. So what—?

“Mornin’, sleepy ‘ead.”

Jimmy’s eyes snapped open at the unfamiliar voice and he quickly found the source across the small room. It was a human boy that looked about Sam’s age, lying on his back in a bed with a PADD held over his face. He wore baggy sweatpants and socks, with a blinding clash of colors on a long sleeved shirt. His black hair was cut short and crisp, with a single patch of white by his forehead. Jimmy didn’t recognize the accent, but more concerning than that, he didn’t recognize the person.

“Who’re you?” Jimmy asked, groaning again as he forced himself into a sitting position.

“Denner Talbot,” the kid replied, putting his PADD aside and rolling onto his side. “I’m your roommate for the trip, ‘ope you don’t mind. They didn’t want unaccompanied minors rooming alone.”

“Trip? What...?” Why was he rooming with anyone in the first place? Where even _was_ this room? It was sparse, two utilitarian beds including his own that barely had a yard between them, which led to a metal slide door at the foot of their beds. There seemed to be a ledge over the boy’s bed with a duffle bag as bright and chaotic as his shirt. Due to the low ceiling over his head, Jimmy assumed there was a similar space above him, hopefully with a bag of his own supplies.

“Your dad said you might be out of it a bit, somethin’ ‘bout gettin’ over Betazelo,” Denner shrugged, picking up his PADD again. _What the hell is Betazelo?_ Jimmy wondered. _Frank probably made it up,_ he decided as Denner continued, “‘e left your PADD on the desk there, said somethin’ ‘bout a note.”

Jimmy didn’t bother to correct the assumption that Frank was his father—because certainly that was who he was referring to—as he looked towards the desk by his bed. Sure enough, his PADD was there, along with his ID and...passport? Jimmy snagged the PADD, noting that his comm was absent from the pile.

As he turned on the PADD, a new message alert blinked in the corner. Anxiety prickling within him, Jimmy tapped the icon.

_From: Davies, Frank Michael_  
Sent: 2245.217 15:12  
To: Kirk, James Tiberius  
Subject: (none) 

_You’re on a shuttle to Tarlus IV where I’ve signed you up for their Alternative Corrections Program for troubled youths. You’re gonna stay there and you’re not coming back until your mother comes home, which, I’ll remind you, won’t be for another year and a half. Your admissions files are attached. Good riddance._

Frank had sent him away. _Far_ away it seemed. That mechanical hum wasn’t from a planet-based shuttle, it was a warp core engine. He was outside of the Sol System on his way to...where?

“Where’s Tarlus IV?” Jimmy muttered, scanning the note.

“‘ell if I know,” Denner said, not looking away from his own PADD. “Why d’you ask?”

“That’s where we’re going, isn’t it?”

“Tar- _sus_ IV, not Tarlus,” Denner chuckled.

Jimmy read the note again with a frown. “So...there’s no troubled youths program there?”

Denner barked out a laugh. “You’re ‘ilarious, kid. We’re gonna be troubled after all that ‘omework we’re gonna get, that’s for sure.”

“Homework? What’re you going to Tarsus IV for?”

“The Tarsus IV Advanced Learnin’ Program, isn’t that what you’re ‘ere for? No other reason to send a kid to that ‘ole in the galaxy colony, right?”

“Right...” Jimmy said, quickly opening the files Frank had attached. Giving them a quick glance, he let out a snort. Frank must have been drunk when he filled out the forms, or maybe he was just that idiotic, but if Frank had intended to sign him up for a troubled youths program, he had royally messed up. Instead of signing up for the TACP (Tarlus IV Alternative Corrections Program), Frank had signed him up for the TALP (Tarsus IV Advanced Learning Program). Frank definitely had the worst intentions in mind, but maybe Jimmy would get something out of this situation. He’d finally be going to a school that challenged him. And he’d be away from Frank.

This was going to be the best trip ever.

“‘Ey, so,” Denner said, bringing him out of his thoughts. “I’ve kinda been callin’ ya JT in my ‘ead, they only put initials and last name on the roomin’ assignments so—”

“JT’s fine,” Jimmy said quickly. If he was going to a new place, maybe it would be a good idea to give himself a new start as well. Jimmy—JT put the PADD back on the bedside desk with a sigh. Now that he was awake, he was really starting to feel hunger gnaw at him. He wondered when the last time he ate was. Maybe lunch before the car incident.

But even as he shifted to stand, his midsection cried in protest at the movement and he settled back down on the bed. Maybe he should rest more and when he woke up he might feel better to go get food.

**~Should JT: A, Go get food, or B, Go back to sleep?~ _(Voters chose "A")_**

Food was probably the best idea, JT decided. He would only be hungrier if he slept longer, and he might not feel up to searching at that point. And there was no guarantee that his aches and pains would feel better after the additional rest.

“Any idea where I can get food?” JT asked, moving onto his feet. His midsection hurt, but at least he couldn’t feel the broken rib he distinctly remembered receiving. A regen must have at least healed the bone, but Frank likely couldn’t have been bothered to deal with the rest. JT suspected that if he lifted up his shirt, he’d find a colorful array of bruising, but he wasn’t about to check that with Denner in the room.

“Uh, Deck 3 was the mess deck, but they’ve only got replicators, no fresh food ‘ere,” Denner replied readily. “Turn left, go down the ‘all and there’s a ladder ‘atch that’ll drop you right in front of the mess.”

“Great,” JT muttered, dreading the trip down the ladder in his current state. At least he’d have food in his system for the return trip. “I’ll be back eventually,” he said louder.

“Eat your fill, kid,” Denner said, not looking up from his PADD.

The hallway was moderately busy as JT stepped out of the room, most people in civilian attire, though a few passing people were dressed in some sort of olive jacket uniform. JT had never been on an intersystem commercial transport ship before, so it was interesting to see a starship crew other than Starfleet officers.

Reaching the end of the hallway, JT found the open ladder hatch Denner mentioned, with a large blue ‘2’ next to it. Luckily the ladders between decks seemed staggered, so JT wouldn’t have to worry about falling to his death if he lost his footing. He might get another broken rib though. But one level wouldn’t be too bad, JT decided, grabbing the nearest ladder rung and stepping down. About halfway down, JT was more than ready to revise his previous assumption as his core muscles burned in protest, but he made it to Deck 3 with no incident.

The mess deck was right where Denner had said, almost exactly across the hall from the ladder hatch. JT wished he had asked what time it was. The mess deck seemed fairly empty so it probably wasn’t a standard meal time, and there weren’t exactly any windows that would be of any help. JT couldn’t find a wall chrono anywhere, but he assumed it was still a normal time of day due to the hallway traffic. Not to mention, Denner hadn’t looked very tired.

As JT made his way over to the replicators, he scanned the small scatter of people in the room. It looked like the mess doubled as a rec room; JT could see two sets of Tri-D chess games, as well as a small group of people playing cards. There was an elderly woman reading an actual book by one of the viewports, and a teenager sitting in the corner reading off their PADD—

No way.

Before he knew what was happening, JT’s feet were carrying him away from the replicators and further into the room. In his haste, his hip banged against one of the tables, but he didn’t let it stop his trek forward even as he let out a short pained grunt. But the noise had caused the boy to look up and his jaw dropped as JT approached him.

“Jimmy?!"

There was no denying it now. JT rushed forward even as Sam stood, his PADD falling forgotten to the floor with a clatter. Sam looked a bit stunned, but he opened his arms regardless just as JT crashed into him, latching his arms around his brother with zero intent of letting him go. Of letting him _leave_ again.

“Jimmy, what the hell—?”

“You’re really here,” JT said into Sam’s shirt, gripping the material tighter with his hands as Sam rested his own around JT’s shoulders.

 _“Please_ tell me you didn’t follow me,” Sam said, pushing JT just far enough away so he could look at him but still keeping his hands firmly on JT’s shoulders.

“Not on purpose,” JT said, diverting his gaze. “I mean, I’m really glad you’re here but it’s not like—”

“‘Not on purpose?’ What’s that supposed to mean?” Sam said, giving JT a critical look. He wasn’t really sure how to answer without making Sam upset, but he seemed to get an idea anyway at JT’s silence. _“Frank?_ Did he send you here? Why?”

“He didn’t technically mean to send me here,” JT rambled, still not looking Sam in the eye. “He wanted to send me to Tarlus IV, but he messed up the paperwork. He just left me that note and—”

“He left you a _note?”_ Sam said incredulously. “He didn’t even explain to you what was happening? That sonofabitch, what’d he do, just drag you to the shuttle port and toss you on the nearest one with a ‘sayonara’—?”

“Maybe?”

 _“‘Maybe?’”_ Sam stopped, and JT chanced a peek up at him, but at the look of horror on Sam’s face, he hurriedly looked away again. “Jimmy, why don’t you know what happened?”

“I was asleep I guess,” JT mumbled, knowing how feeble his excuse sounded. He might as well say what happened, Sam would find out anyway—

“You were asleep you guess,” Sam said lowly, not buying it for a second.

“Okay, can you stop repeating everything I say, because it’s getting a little—”

“What did he _do?”_

JT wanted to say what Frank had done, what Frank had made him feel, but in that moment, it seemed so...insignificant to get worked up over. Frank had hurt him badly just this one time, and after he’d done a pretty awful thing, but Sam had been hurt by Frank so much more often. Did JT really have the right to complain over this one little instance that he probably deserved?

“Remember the car?” JT said finally. At Sam’s hesitant nod, JT continued with a quick, “I crashed it. Frank didn’t like it.”

“Shit, Jimmy...” Sam breathed. “Did he...are you…?” JT just leaned forward and rested his forehead on Sam’s chest, and he felt Sam move his arms around his shoulders to pull him closer, one hand resting on the back of his head.

JT suddenly felt exhausted. “He was really mad,” he said after a moment, voice muffled by Sam’s shirt.

“Are you okay?”

JT shook his head slightly, and he felt Sam’s arms tighten around him, not minding that the added force pressed uncomfortably on his midsection. He hadn’t really had the time to confront what happened yet. In the moment he had been a tad preoccupied, and ever since waking up, he’d been more concerned about where he was. But now that he had the time to decompress, all those feelings that had been pushed away were seeping back in.

“I thought he was gonna kill me,” he whispered finally, eyes wide as he tried to digest the fear he had felt in those few minutes.

He felt Sam’s cheek drop onto the top of his head. “I’m so sorry I left you there, I dunno what I was thinking—”

“Just don’t leave me again,” JT said, lifting his arms up to wrap around Sam again, eyes closing in contentment.

“Never again, kiddo.”

While JT finally ate, Sam asked him about the injuries he’d sustained from Frank. JT told the truth for the most part, about the injuries he could remember and his suspicion that Frank or someone had run a regen for at least a little while to repair bones. He neglected to mention the splitting headache he still had, though Sam had already implied that he had noticed the symptoms of a half-healed concussion. He also hadn’t shown him the bruising because one: they were still in the mess deck, and two: JT hadn’t even looked at it yet and he wasn’t about to incite Sam into a homicidal rage if it looked bad.

As for Sam, it turned out that while he had hacked himself a ticket for the shuttle so the computers wouldn’t detect him as a stowaway, he’d been unable to add himself to the quarter roster and was thus without a room. After JT had finished his meal (which apparently was a late lunch), he invited him back to his shared room with Denner. A squished bed or even the luggage shelf would at least give Sam somewhere to sleep.

Exiting the mess deck, JT started towards the ladder hatch, but Sam grabbed his shoulder before he could reach for the nearest rung.

“Where d’you think you’re going?”

“Uh, my room, we just talked about this—”

“You’re _hurt,_ why aren’t you taking the lift?” Sam said sternly.

JT paused, turning to Sam with a sheepish look. “There’s a lift?”

Sam rolled his eyes and gently tugged JT down the hall, “C’mon...”

They made it up to Deck 2 with far less aches and pains than JT was initially expecting from the ladder, and when they made it back to JT’s room, the first thing out of his mouth was, “You could’ve _told_ me there was a lift farther down the hall.”

Denner, still reading his PADD, looked up in bewilderment. “Yeah, but it’s so far outta the way—”

“He’s _injured,_ he could have hurt himself even worse going down that thing,” Sam interrupted sharply.

To his credit, Denner immediately tossed his PADD to the side and sat up with an expression of concern. “Shit, JT, you coulda told me that, I would’ve sent you to the lift if I’da known.”

“His name’s not JT, it’s—”

“Actually,” JT interrupted shyly, “I kinda wanna go by JT now.”

Sam gave him a skeptical look. “Since when?”

“Since like an hour ago,” JT admitted. “I figured...if this is a new start and all, away from home and...stuff, then maybe I should have a new name, too.”

Sam looked at him for a moment then let out a sigh. “It’s not like I can say anything against it, can I? That’d be hypocritical... Alright, but I can’t promise I won’t slip up for at least a month.”

JT chuckled, “That’s fair.”

“Sorry, but I dunno _your_ name,” Denner said after a moment, nodding towards Sam.

“Sam Kirk,” Sam said shortly, unable to reach out a hand in greeting due to cramped nature of the room and JT in his way.

“Denner Talbot,” Denner replied promptly. “So, brothers ‘uh? Why didn’t they stick you guys together in the first place?”

“Long story,” Sam said.

“Well ‘ey, if you guys wanna room together, I don’t mind switchin’,” Denner said readily. “It’s not like I have any attachment to this room, it’s all a matter of grabbin’ my bag and goin’—”

“It’s, uh, not that simple,” JT said awkwardly, but Sam quickly picked up the reigns.

“There was a scheduling glitch and they ran out of rooms before I could be assigned,” he said easily. “I’ve mostly just been wandering, slept in the officer’s break room last night.”

“I told him he could squeeze in with us,” JT said.

“Sure, kid,” Dunner said, shrugging and grabbing his PADD as he settled back again. “It’s just one more night and we’re there, won’t be that much of an issue. Floor won’t be too comfy but—”

“I’ll throw a spare blanket on the luggage shelf and I’ll be fine,” Sam said, eyeing the ledge over JT’s bed.

“You can throw your bags over with mine, you guys certainly packed light,” Denner said idly, nodding at the bag over Sam’s shoulder. JT looked over his bed and noticed he did in fact have a bag, though it was only a backpack. He wondered what Frank would’ve thought to pack for him, if anything useful.

“We might need to hit up a store when we get there,” Sam said idly. _With what money?_ JT wondered, sending a questioning gaze back at his brother. Sam noticed and smirked, “Trust fund, kid.”

After getting Sam settled, JT decided it was time for that nap he entertained earlier. While planning to rest until dinner time, he was more tired than he thought and he ended up sleeping through the rest of the day and overnight. Sam woke up him up for breakfast in the mess, and soon enough the ship intercom announced that they were dropping out of warp and would be landing on the colony planet within the hour. TALP participants were to follow an attendant to the shuttles that would be waiting for them.

Since Sam had just boarded the first shuttle he could sneak his way onto, he wasn’t actually signed up for the TALP like JT was (however inadvertently). With JT’s help (because while Sam was decently proficient at coding, JT truly had an affinity for it), he hacked the transport shuttle’s computer and forged a second admissions file by copying Frank’s information from JT’s file. After that, it was as simple as following the rest of the program participants as they stepped off the transport (the _Odyssey,_ JT read off the hull as he disembarked) and were herded alphabetically towards a trio of shuttles.

Sam and JT made their way towards the middle shuttle while they waved goodbye to Denner as he trotted off towards the last. As the brothers approached the boarding line, JT squinted as he tried to read the words on the shuttle hull through the bright natural light. _Tarsus IV Inter-Ring Transport_ was printed on the side in large bold letters that barely contrasted the metal hull.

“Inter-Ring?” JT asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sam just shrugged, but a voice behind him quickly said, “The colony’s set up in a ring system.” The boy who spoke looked to be JT’s age and was grinning congenially at him. His dark brown hair was sticking up in the back like he’d been sleeping on it just minutes prior, but with his air of excitement, you’d have never known otherwise.

“Government and community-wide public buildings like the hospital are in the inner ring—Ring 1—and our school is outside of that in Ring 2 with the main residential districts,” the boy continued as the queue moved forward. “Ring 3 is mostly agricultural, but it also has the main colony shuttle port that we’re in right now. IRT brings you back and forth between the rings and the Ring Lines take you places within the ring you’re already in.”

Sam seemed to be uninterested at the information and kept glancing ahead towards the front of the line, though JT knew from experience that he’d absorbed every word. But Sam’s air of indifference left JT to respond to the eager wealth of information.

“Thanks, uh...”

“Tom Leighton,” the boy said promptly, sticking out his hand.

“JT Kirk,” JT said, taking the proffered hand with a smile. “This is my brother, Sam.” Sam nodded but otherwise didn’t acknowledge the pair. JT rolled his eyes at him in understanding. His brother was one thing, but associating with _two_ pre-teens? He’d look ‘uncool.’ “How’d you know all that?” JT asked, looking back at Tom.

“Eh, I just read all the material I could find on Tarsus,” Tom shrugged as the three of them reached the boarding attendant and swiped their IDs. They filed quickly onto the shuttle and JT sat next to Sam while Tom sat across from the pair. “I’ve been looking forward to this for months so I needed something to tide me over, y’know?”

“Uh, not really,” JT admitted. “This was...kinda a last minute decision for us.” Sam snorted next to him and JT sent him a smirk. “Well it _was,_ wasn’t it?”

“Sure, sure,” Sam said dismissively, a wry grin on his lips.

The ride to Ring 2 was relatively short and uneventful, barring the flurry of conversation between JT and Tom that Sam drowned out by taking a quick nap. Before they knew it, they were unloading in front of the school campus and were herded towards the main auditorium to deal with rooming assignments (those who already had a roommate picked out were invited forward first, and those remaining were randomly paired with other students) and given the rest of the morning to unpack before lunch.

The rest of the day was filled with TALP Orientation, and JT was startled yet excited to learn that classes would be starting tomorrow. In Iowa, he had another whole month of summer vacation left, and yet he found he didn’t mind the early start to school. If the program was as challenging as Tom had described, JT was really looking forward to it. And though Sam wouldn’t admit it, he likely felt the same way.

After dinner, everyone ages thirteen and younger were free to relax, while students fourteen and older were due to report for an aptitude test later that night. While Sam had the test to prepare for, JT found himself torn between staying in and going to visit Tom down the hall. As much as he wanted to visit with his new friend, all of the hustle and bustle of the day was really starting to get to him. As the day had gone on, his injuries started to protest more and more, until he found he could no longer ignore it.

Of course, he wouldn’t be moving around _that_ much if he went to visit Tom, he could still rest a bit while socializing. But he knew that wouldn’t be as beneficial and the pain might end up getting worse. Maybe he should stay in the room and sleep while Sam took his exam.

**~Should JT: A, Go to sleep, or B, Go visit Tom?~ _(Voters chose "A")_**

Sleep was probably the best idea, JT decided. He could see Tom tomorrow during and after class, and he’d need all the energy he could muster for his first day of classes. And if Sam was going to be out of the room anyway, he’d be able to fall asleep while he had some peace and quiet.

JT didn’t want to worry Sam though, so until he left for his exam, JT sat in bed with his PADD, reading over his course schedule for the next day. He’d signed up for a couple elective courses in addition to the core classes as required, choosing Computer Programing and Xenolinguistics. Sam had scoffed at him when he noticed the programming class— _”As if you need more help hacking into things.”_ —but with the advanced level of the classes, JT was optimistic that he’d actually learn something. And Xenolinguistics was being taught by the famous Hoshi Sato, so JT was excited for that class even though his limited language experience only covered a year of French. Iowa public schools didn’t exactly have the best variety. Sam had actually signed up for Xenolinguistics as well, albeit with a different age group, along with a Xenobiology class.

JT had just finished looking through the Computer Programming syllabus when he heard Sam start to collect his things across the room. “Good luck on the test!” JT said as he started towards the door.

Sam snorted lightly. “Thanks, but it’s not like these exams mean anything,” he said. “See ya.”

The moment the door closed, JT tossed his PADD on his desk and was asleep within the minute.

* * *

Months passed, and JT was having the time of his life. For the first time, he had friends, he was enjoying his classwork and actually had to apply himself, and the stress of his home life was completely absent.

While the school workload was heavy, JT also found plenty of time for extracurriculars. He and Tom, who had quickly become his best friend, spent a lot of their free time exploring the colony rings, and even beyond Ring 3. They’d gotten involved in a few TALP sponsored extracurriculars as well, such as archery, skeet, and rock climbing. JT often found that he could study _while_ doing these activities, much to Tom’s mock ire.

“JT, I swear, if you don’t stop conjugating Orion verbs, I’m gonna let go,” Tom said one day on the rock wall.

JT scoffed. “You know they’ll just catch you, right?”

“When are they gonna let us on the actual rock faces?” Tom asked abruptly, likely looking to hide his lack of a good comeback.

“Maybe when you stop threatening to let go,” JT grinned, climbing up a few more notches.

“And whose fault is that, huh? Don’t conjugate and climb, kids!” Tom hollered from below him. The pair had a good laugh at that until their instructor yelled at them to get their butts moving.

After climbing, they would usually go back to the dorms to shower before dinner, but today it seemed like Tom had other plans. “Seriously, dude, I’m starving. The mess can deal with our sweat until I get some food in me,” Tom insisted, leading JT towards the mess hall.

“We’re gonna spoil everyone’s dinner,” JT said, rolling his eyes as he followed.

“I think something else is gonna spoil dinner,” Tom said idly as the reached the hall.

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?” JT asked.

Tom just grinned and led him to one of the tables rather than the meal card line. As they approached, JT was surprised to see Sam and Denner at the table Tom was seemingly leading him to. It was odd; Tom and JT never ate with Sam—or rather, Sam never ate with them—and JT hadn’t seen much of Denner since the shuttle, other than in passing.

JT and Tom were practically at the table when JT noticed the cake in the middle of the table. It was precut, and if the discarded plates littered on the table were any indication, it looked as though they had pieced the cake together using individual cake slices from the replicator.

“Happy birthday, JT!” Tom said brightly, hanging off of JT’s shoulders by one arm.

“‘Appy birthday, kid,” Denner echoed with a nod.

“Happy birthday, JT,” Sam said, standing from the table and giving him an affectionate head rub as Tom dislodged himself and sat at the table

JT stood in place, still a bit stunned. He hadn’t even realized that it was his birthday. Sure, he knew today’s date, but birthdays were never celebrated in the Kirk household (or Frank household, more like) and so JT had never thought of January 4th as anything but the day his father died. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do or say, and he looked at Sam in question.

Sam luckily seemed to understand his feelings on the matter and sat in front of him. “Did you really think I would let you get away with not celebrating your birthday the first time we actually have a chance to?” he said softly so Tom and Denner wouldn’t hear.

“I didn’t think anyone would ever want to celebrate today,” JT admitted.

“No one’s celebrating that Dad died. We’re celebrating that you _lived.”_

JT nodded with a grateful smile, and after a quick hug from his brother, he sat down ready to dig into the cake.

“Did you guys already eat dinner or are you joining us in eating out of order?” Tom grinned, already placing the first slice on a plate in front of him.

Sam actually scowled at that and glanced towards the meal card line, but it was Denner who said, “Apparently there’s a new meal card limit, four cards per meal. One for the main, one for a drink, and two for sides, includin’ dessert if you want it. Sam ‘ere went and used all ‘is cards on the cake before ‘e got an error message and was left with half a cake. I was behind him in line and used my cards to finish it off.”

“Car’ limi’s, wha’?” Tom said through his bite of cake.

JT put the slice of cake he was about to eat back on the plate and looked at the pair in horror. “You guys gave up dinner just so you could give me a birthday cake? Are you insane?”

“It’s not like we’re going hungry, kiddo, we do plan on eating some of this ourselves, you know,” Sam said placatingly, nodding towards the cake. “And there’s plenty of water in the dorms.”

“Yeah, but...you should at least have real food,” JT insisted. “Tom and I still have our dinner credits, we can split them between the four of us.”

“Sure, we won’t need all of them after this,” Tom agreed easily.

Sam chuckled fondly, “Ever the good samaritan, aren’t ya?”

“Weird that they wouldn’t announce the card limit ahead of time though,” Denner said idly, picking at his own slice of cake. “I wonder if it’s one of those ‘ealthy eatin’ shticks.”

“Yeah, well, as long as they don’t cut out the dessert options, I’m fine,” Tom said, grinning through another bite of cake.

As it turned out, dessert options were the least of their worries. Over the next couple weeks, meal card limits dropped to three per meal, and then to one per meal plus water. The school wasn’t providing any type of explanation, but Sam had heard pretty substantial rumors from some of the older students.

“Apparently there’s a massive crop failure in the outer ring, and they’ve had to divert power to replicators throughout the colony,” he explained one night. “They’re being very hush hush about what caused the failure, but for now they’re pretty focused on damage control.”

“We’re not gonna run out of food, right?” JT asked anxiously.

“Everything’s gonna be fine, kiddo.”

Everything was not fine. The colony continued to grow restless on lack of sustenance, all colonists—including the TALP students—had been restricted to two meals a day based on a meal credit system, and there were growing talks of civil unrest in the colony government. Classes continued as normally as they could, but everyone was starting to feel the burden on their bodies. JT and Tom had stopped going to the rockwall when they realized they weren’t getting enough food to replace the energy they were expending.

Eventually, even the replicators were having trouble keeping up with demand. They weren’t designed for the minimal power draw they were being forced to run off of, nor for the length of time they’d been stretched thin throughout the powergrid. One by one, replicators were burning out throughout the colony, and they just didn’t have the necessary resources to replace them. Colonists were becoming more and more insistent that colony leadership tap into the emergency stores, but the sitting governor refused to move on the issue. He insisted that colony supplies would last until the next scheduled Starfleet visit, but as the days went on, this was looking to be more and more unlikely.

It all seemed to come to a head when it was announced that Governor Tanebin had been overthrown, and a new governor had been appointed by the colony council. Everyone waited with baited breath to see what this new governor would do about the food crisis; surely anything he did would be better than the current state of affairs.

Within the week, the new governor had announced the beginning of his new reforms. Meal credits would be allocated to each colonist using their IDs. Meal credits could be redeemed for either replicator meal cards or physical food tickets for emergency store rations. These credits would be added to IDs once every two weeks, and failure to register an ID card would result in a lack of meal credits.

The colony was randomly divided in half, presumably due to the building capacity of the Community Center the meal credit allocations were being distributed from. One half of the colony was due to report at 10:00 sharp, the other due at 15:00. Failure to report on time would result in no meal credits for the fortnight.

It was a powerful incentive to be on time.

It seemed as though the colony division really was random, because Sam found himself in the morning ration group while JT was due in the afternoon group. The day of the first meal credit allocation, JT watched silently as Sam left for his ration. “I’ll be back soon enough, kiddo,” he assured. Three hours later, long after Tom had stopped by to keep JT company, Sam arrived back at the dorm.

“What happened?” JT asked immediately.

Sam shrugged, collapsing tiredly on his bed after he shucked off his shoes. “A whole lot of standing around and listening to the new governor spout off speeches of hope and shit. They wouldn’t let us leave until everyone had gotten their credits either, it sucked. Wear your comfy shoes. And for the sake of everyone there, deodorant.”

“What’s the new governor like?” Tom asked eagerly.

“Kodos? Eh, he’s a bit full of himself, if you ask me,” Sam said, lying back. “Seems to think he’s a messiah or something, all because he decided to finally fucking open a locked door. Anyone with a key can do that.”

“Did you get meal credits or storage tickets?”

“TALP students are only getting meal credits because we already have the replicators here,” Sam said. “I think they based it on replicator location, people didn’t get a choice between the two, it was assigned.”

“Probably for the best, I wouldn’t want to deal with the people fighting for storage food,” Tom said. “We’re already used to our meal credit system. Still two a day?” Sam nodded. “Yeah, we’ll just hold off on rock climbing until the supply ship shows up,” Tom said, grinning at JT.

“Fine with me.”

It wasn’t much later that it was time for Tom and JT to head over to the Community Center for their own rations. They ran into Denner at the IRT station, and together the trio took the shuttle into Ring 1. The shuttle was packed far more than was normal during Sunday afternoons as everyone on board was seemingly on their way to the afternoon ration. If they weren’t, they were a colossal jerk for taking up space on the shuttle when they could’ve easily waited thirty minutes.

“Sam got lucky with the mornin’ ration,” Denner said as they stepped off the shuttle, following the mass of people as they walked to the Community Center.

“Why d’you say that?” JT asked.

“‘is ration time didn’t run into a meal time, we’re gonna ‘ave to ‘ave a late dinner if this goes as long as theirs did.”

“Awwww,” Tom groaned. “I would’ve hoarded some of breakfast if I knew that.”

JT rolled his eyes. “We’ll be fine, the morning ration only took three hours, we’ll be outta here in time for a normal dinner. And maybe now that they know what they’re doing, it’ll be quicker this time around.”

“That’s true enough, the mornin’ group were the guinea pigs in this situation, weren’t they,” Denner mused.

“How long does it take to line up four thousand people and have them swipe their ID card?” Tom asked.

“Apparently three hours.”

With fifteen minutes to spare, the Community Center was already packed with colonists as the trio reached the check-in, alphabetical lines once again separating Denner from JT and Tom. He sent them a quick wave and then disappeared down the row. Minutes later, JT and Tom found themselves inside the main hall, where hundreds of colonists were packed in tight with no semblance of order.

“No wonder it took three hours, this organization is horrible,” Tom complained loudly, drawing a glare from some of the nearby workers.

“Guess they need more than one guinea pig,” JT shrugged. “They’ll figure it out.”

“In the meantime, my stomach’s gonna complain about the delay in dinner.”

JT snorted. “You’ll get over it.”

As the minutes crept closer to 15:00, JT was surprised that nothing was being done about the organization in the room. There weren’t any tables or anything set up for people to add credits to their IDs, nor were any of the workers making any motion to correct that oversight. JT wondered if the workers were understaffed and that was why there had been such an emphasis on everyone getting their on time. Perhaps the people working to check the colonists in were also the ones in charge of allocating funds.

“Hey, so have you actually been in the Center before?” Tom asked suddenly.

“Uh, no, why?”

Tom grimaced, looking around the perimeter. “Any chance you know where the bathroom is?”

JT rolled his eyes. “Oh my God—”

“It’ll just take a minute!” Tom said, cheeks burning. “And we’ll still be in the building, we’ll be fine. It’s not like we’ll be first in line anyway.”

 _“What_ line?” JT grumbled, but still followed Tom towards the edge of the room.

There was a guard next to the closest exit, so Tom made a beeline for him, JT on his heels. He was starting to find the situation a little hilarious as he watched Tom bounce on the balls of his feet as he stopped in front of the guard. “Hey, can you tell me where the bathroom is?”

“Get back in the room, kid.”

Rude. “We’re still in the room,” Tom said, “and we’ll come right back, we just wanna know where the bathroom is—”

“Get back in the room,” the guard repeated, this time using the butt of his phaser rifle to shove Tom away in the shoulder.

“Woah, hey!” JT said, steadying Tom as he stumbled. “That was uncalled for!”

“Forget it, it’s fine,” Tom said, giving a glare to the guard as they stepped away. “It looks like it’s about to start anyway, I can slip out once they tell us what’s going on.”

JT still didn’t see any tables or anything set up, so he wondered what exactly would be starting, but he understood what Tom was referring to anyway when he noticed a figure standing on the balcony above them. JT had never seen the man before, but even from a distance he could see the Council lapel he wore on his collar, with a chain and second lapel attached, denoting his role as governor.

This was the new governor, Kodos.

“Ah, we’re about to hear the start of the ‘hope and shit’ speeches,” Tom said as Kodos raised a hand for silence. “I _hope…”_ Tom muttered as the masses slowly started to quiet, “that I can take a _shit...”_

JT stifled a snort just as Kodos began to speak.

“The revolution is successful...”

“Damn, this guy _does_ think he’s some kinda messiah,” Tom said in JT’s ear.

“But survival depends on drastic measures. Your continued existence represents a threat to the wellbeing of society.”

JT heard movement behind him, and turned to see the rude guard fasten something metal over his mouth. Around him, the gathered colonists rustled nervously, the tension so thick it was almost tangible. Something was very wrong...

“Your lives mean slow death to the more valued members of the colony. Therefore, I have no alternative but to sentence you to death.” Distantly, JT could hear the sounds of the outer doors shutting with a thunk, and a quick glance around the room showed that the other guards had something on their faces as well.

“Your execution is so ordered—”

JT heard something like a canister pop above him. “Tom, hold your breath.”

“—Signed, Kodos, Governor of Tarsus IV.”

“Now!”

JT took a deep gulp of air and thankfully heard Tom do the same next to him as the room suddenly started to fill with a light blue gas, quickly descending in a menacing cloud from the ceiling. Kodos had fastened his own device over his mouth at the end of the speech and was watching calmly from above as the masses below him broke out in a panic.

Most people made their way towards the main exit, but JT knew those doors would be locked tight. He also knew that he had very little time to act. He could already feel his lungs screaming at him and his skin was starting to feel a bit tingly, likely from the gas.

JT turned and spotted the rude guard, currently dealing with crowd control by shooting anyone who tried to get near his doorway. The main doors may be locked, but there had to be a way out if the guards were protecting those exits so fiercely—

A body suddenly crashed into the guard, leaving the doorway open and the pair tumbled to the floor. People started to collapse around them as JT grabbed Tom and hauled him towards the new exit—

A hand latched around JT’s ankle and he fell to the ground, letting out a sharp exhale upon impact.

JT could feel everything going fuzzy, every fiber of his being willing him to take a breath as he weakly kicked at the hand around his ankle—

Suddenly, he was free and a pair of hands was hauling him to his feet. He looked down at the guard who grabbed him and was surprised to see Denner grappling with the man. Before JT could even spare a thought to help him, a whine of muted phaser fire cut through the air, and Denner’s body fell slack in front of him.

Tom continued to drag him away and through the exit while they could, both taking a large gulp of air as soon as they entered the clear hallway.

“Denner—” JT gasped, trying to get his breath back while simultaneously processing what just happened. “Denner, he—”

“JT, we gotta _go,_ there’s nothing we can do for him now,” Tom said, grabbing JT’s shoulders and shaking him, “but we’re toast if we don’t get moving.”

JT nodded aimlessly, using Tom to ground himself. He was right, they had to move—

A sound from up the hallway caught their attention, and the pair turned to find a group of kids and a young woman huddled by one of the doors. Deciding that children were hardly a threat in this situation, JT and Tom made a beeline for them.

“Do either of you know how to pick a lock?” she asked immediately as they approached, clearly making the same deduction about JT and Tom as they had about them. “It’s an old fashioned—”

“I do,” JT said. “If someone has a pick or pin or—”

“Here,” she said, shoving a pin into his hand. JT exchanged a bewildered look with Tom even as he dropped to his knees and went to work on the lock.

“What exactly are we picking the lock for?” Tom asked for him.

“There’s a maintenance hallway on the other side, it’s the only way out of this building other than the main doors, which obviously aren’t an option right now.”

The kids, to their credit, were being very quiet during this whole exchange, but JT figured they were a bit shell shocked from the events of the last few minutes. Hell, _he_ was still a bit shell shocked. Now that JT had a chance to look, the group of seven kids seemed to range from ten to four, and the woman, petite and stocky with freckled brown skin, seemed to be in her early twenties.

“Got the lock!” he announced as the door clicked, and he pushed it open with a bodily shove.

“Good, let’s go.”

A phaser blast collided with the wall next to them, and everyone ducked instinctively even as they turned, seeing a guard approaching them fast.

“Take the kids and go,” the woman said urgently, shoving them through the open door.

“What about you?” JT asked as Tom herded the kids through.

The woman grimaced and shook her head. “Get them out of here,” was all she said before she slammed the door in JT’s face. Moments later, he heard her enraged scream as she engaged the guard.

“C’mon, we gotta go,” Tom said somberly, jerking his head towards the now visible exit.

Miraculously, the group encountered no further resistance as they left the building. It seemed as though all forces had been concentrated on the main assembly room, but as the dust began to settle, JT knew this would no longer be the case. They needed to get out of the open, and fast.

The kids, bless them, followed JT and Tom without protest as they led the group on foot out of the Inner Ring and towards a small maze of alleyways that would provide them with decent cover until they figured out what to do.

It was obvious that they needed to get out of the colony, into Ring 3 at least, or maybe even beyond that. But they didn’t have the resources to survive out there for long, especially with the fields reportedly destroyed.

JT desperately wanted to find Sam. To let him know he was okay, to tell him what had happened, and most importantly, to get his help. They were fugitives now, the whole group of them, and from now on they’d be on the run until something on the colony changed, may it be a change in leadership, or relief from Starfleet. Until then, they were on their own.

The kids had to leave now. There were too many of them and they were moving too slowly, but if they could get out of Ring 2 before patrols started to ramp up, they might have a chance. But they couldn’t go alone.

Ultimately, it came down to whether JT thought it was more beneficial for him to go off and find Sam, thus leaving Tom alone with the kids, or stay with Tom and provide extra security and support to get them all out. By finding Sam, he could get his help in dealing with all of this, both advice and physical resources to help take care of all these kids they’d been saddled with. But finding Sam meant leaving Tom and the kids alone, and there were already two corpses that proved a single caretaker may be a bad idea.

**~Should JT: A, Go find Sam, or B, Go with Tom and the kids?~ _(Voters chose "B")_**

JT shook his head fiercely to clear his thoughts. He had to stay with Tom. Denner and that woman...he didn’t even know her name, they sacrificed themselves so they could escape, and he couldn’t leave them on their own now. He had faith that Tom would protect them to his best ability, but he was one person, not that much older that some of the other kids in that group. They needed his help more than JT needed Sam’s.

JT just hoped Sam would find him after all this.

“We need to get to Ring 3 at the least, but we should try to get to that boulder field we found a couple months back,” JT suggested in hushed tones. “We’re already heading in the right direction for it, and it’ll provide us with really good cover if patrols ever end up that far out.”

Tom nodded sharply. “Good idea, there’s plenty of overhangs there too for shelter, and it wouldn’t be completely obvious which one we’re hiding in. Okay,” he said, turning to the huddled group. “You guys have been doing amazing so far, but we’ve got a bit more of a trek ahead of us. Have any of you been beyond Ring 3 before?”

One of the younger kids raised their hand while the rest of the group all shook their heads. One of the older ones said, “My mom said never to go beyond the Rings, it’s not safe.”

“It’s not safe inside the Rings for us anymore either,” Tom stressed.

“What’s your name?” JT asked the child who spoke up.

“Jivesh,” he answered promptly.

“Well, Jivesh, outside is perfectly safe, I’m sure your mom just meant that there’s no security or supervision out there,” JT said. “Which is exactly what we need right now.”

“Speaking of security, we need to move,” Tom said, straightening up from his hunched position. “I think going through the botanical gardens might be out best bet, they’re only a couple blocks away, and they lead almost right up to the Ring 3 boundary. And there’ll be plenty of cover for us too.”

JT nodded in agreement. It was a good enough plan, and they were running out of time. It was a miracle the patrols hadn’t reached Ring 2 yet.

The botanical gardens were just three blocks away, and luckily the group was able to stay in the back alleys until they got there. The gardens themselves weren’t actually in an enclosed building like many other botanical gardens, there was just a glorified archway leading into a fenced in area. It was a public area so there were no gatekeepers of any kind to restrict entry, and there was a similar gateway at the other end of the gardens. It was as perfect as they could ask for for an escape route.

They paused at the end of the alley across the road from the garden entry, Tom at the front looking both ways down the road, and JT behind everyone making sure they weren’t being followed.

“Okay, it’s clear,” Tom said, turning back to the group. “When I say go, I want you guys to run as fast as you can to that big yellow tree, you see it?” He received nods from all the kids. “JT is gonna be right behind you and I’m gonna make sure the road is still clear and then I’ll follow, alright?”

The kids nodded again as they all bunched closer to Tom, ready to make the sprint across the road. JT got as close to Tom as he could manage and whispered, “You sure about this?”

“Yeah, I’ll just outrun them if I stick in front, and that’d be useless,” Tom said quietly. “They just need something to run to, you know? You’ll be behind them to make sure they all make it, and I’ll be right behind you once you get to that tree.”

“You should just run with us,” JT argued.

“We won’t know if we’ve been seen if we all run at the same time,” Tom said. “I’ll be right behind you, but we’ve gotta do it this way.”

JT let out a short sigh. “Alright.” He looked up and down the street himself; it seemed clear to him. The colonists were supposed to be adhering to an imposed curfew during the ration events, so the road was completely empty. If they were gonna make a break for it, now was the time. “Alright,” he repeated, this time to the kids. “You guys ready to run?” He received several head nods in affirmation, though he noted the distinctly nervous looks on the kids’ faces. Hell, he was nervous too. This was a massive game of manhunt, except the consequences would be far worse than just losing a game if they were caught. He made eye contact with Tom and gave him a sharp nod. “Okay, on the count of three. One, two, three—!”

The kids sprinted across the road, JT hot on their heels. Jivesh and some of the other oldest easily out ran most of the group, but the youngest were having trouble keeping up. One of them, the boy who had previously been beyond Ring 3, stumbled and fell to the ground, and JT scooped him up on his way past.

“You alright?” JT asked as he ran.

“I hurt my ankle,” he said with a watery sniff.

 _Shit._ “What’s your name?” JT asked, reaching the arch and making a beeline to the tree. JT hated to think it, but he was glad this kid was so light, he would’ve have been able to carry him in his current state otherwise.

“Kevin.”

“Well, Kevin,” JT said as he approached the kids and set Kevin down as gently as possible, “I can’t do anything for your ankle right now, but try not to put pressure on it, alright? We’ve gotta wait for Tom, and then—”

“JT!”

JT’s head snapped around at Tom’s panicked call, and he immediately saw Tom struggling with two guards in the road. One was trying to drag Tom away as he latched onto the second guard, who looked like he was trying to head towards the gardens.

“Stay out of sight and be quiet,” JT hissed hurriedly before running to Tom’s aid.

As JT ran to tackle the man Tom was trying to restrain, he had a moment of serious regret that he hadn’t signed up for the self defense elective class. He collided with the man in a jumble of limbs, and all four of them went crashing to the ground. JT heard a phaser scrape across the ground, and he lunged blindly towards the sound as the guard closest to him started to get his bearings again. JT had no hope of overpowering this man, the phaser was his only chance—

JT’s fingers grasped the handle of the phaser just as a hand wrapped around his ankle for the second time that afternoon. Except this time Denner wasn’t there to help him, he’d have to do this on his own. JT kicked at the man with his free leg while he tried to grip the phaser correctly—

A whine of phaser fire cut through the air and Tom’s wail of agony followed immediately after. JT took the brief moment of distraction and shot at the guard holding him, hitting him square in the head while singeing the side of his shoe in the process. JT rolled to the side he’d heard Tom yell from, and found him curled on his side, back facing JT.

_No no no no, not Tom too—_

A loud groan came from Tom as he shifted, and JT almost passed out in relief until he remembered the other guard, whose phaser was aimed at the defenseless Tom—

JT didn’t even think, he aimed the phaser at the second guard and shot him just above the ear. JT had the wild thought that his skeet instructor would be proud of the shot as the guard crumpled to the ground, but the moment passed and JT scrambled to his fallen friend. He shoved the phaser in his jeans and used both hands to roll Tom onto his back.

The shot had grazed Tom’s face, but it had done significant damage. The entire left side of Tom’s face was an ugly red and black, blistered and charred, easily a third degree burn at the least.

JT dry heaved at the view and turned his head, “Oh God, okay...” he muttered, taking a deep breath to steady himself. They had to get out of here, the shots were sure to get someone’s attention, and if that hadn’t, the two dead bodies in the street would definitely do the job—

JT heaved again. He’d _killed_ two people—

_Now’s not the time, Jimmy, you’ve gotta get **moving**!_

Sam’s voice shouted clear as day in his mind, and it was enough to snap him out of his downward spiral of thoughts. JT shook his head roughly to clear it. He needed to get Tom out of the open, and he needed to get the kids out of here, too. And then he needed to find supplies to treat Tom, and then get some food for them all—

No, one thing at a time.

“Tom, you’ve gotta get up, I can’t carry you,” JT said desperately. “I’ll take care of you once we’re safe but we’ve gotta move!”

Tom groaned again, but rolled onto his side and tried to get his arms under his body. Seeing his arms shake, JT looped his arms around Tom’s torso and helped haul him onto his feet. Tom swayed in pain, but as the injury was localized to his face, he was in good enough shape to walk as long as someone steadied him.

JT rushed them towards the hidden kids as fast as he dared, and several of them made some sort of noise in response to Tom’s state, some of disgust and others of fear. JT saw Kevin still sitting on the ground, his back resting the tree, and swore under his breath. He wouldn’t be able to carry Kevin _and_ help Tom—

“I can help him stand,” the eldest girl said, quickly noticing JT’s dilemma.

“Thanks, uh—”

“Evaline Moulton,” she said promptly, already moving forward to wrap an arm around Tom’s waist.

“Evaline, you sure?” JT said even has he passed Tom off. The girl seemed to hold his weight well enough.

“Yeah, it’s fine—”

“I’m not a complete invalid, J—” Tom let out a pained grunt as his facial muscles pulled at his burn.

“I know,” JT said placatingly, “but you need help moving, and we’ve gotta go. _Now._ Kevin, I’m gonna put you on my back, okay?”

With Kevin secured on his back with two little arms clinging to his neck, JT led the group through the gardens. They moved much slower than he would’ve liked, but they didn’t have much of a choice. There was no way JT would be able to sustain a faster pace with Kevin on his back, and Tom definitely wouldn’t be able to keep up if they went any faster.

They reached the end of the gardens with no resistance, and the coast looked clear as JT peaked out the exit archway. From here there would be minimal cover save the crop fields until they reached the boulder field, but this was one of the more unpopulated areas of the colony. With the curfew in effect and the devastation across the fields, the chances of running into anyone out here was even less. Even patrols were unlikely to venture out this far until they cleared Rings 1 and 2.

That didn’t mean they were home free just yet. Those dead guards were sure to draw attention, and the botanical gardens were the obvious route of escape. It all came down to how soon those guards would be discovered, and the group had to reach the boulder field before then.

It wasn’t like there was much in their way. Just acres of dead crops…

It was the first time since the crop failure had been reported that JT had seen the fields. He’d seen dead crops before in Iowa, when drought hit and some landowners couldn’t be bothered to sign up for the sprinkler grid. But this...this was more than dead crops. This was more than a drought. This was decay. These crops were _rotting_ from the inside out, with blotches of white fuzz everywhere. JT had heard of fungal infections in crops, but never in such a widespread fashion. This was unprecedented and, dare he say it, unnatural.

“Can that stuff hurt us?” one of the younger kids asked.

JT looked at the nearest plant and inspected the white fuzz closer. It looked like a standard type of Terran fungus, but he couldn’t be sure just by looking at it, and they’d have to walk through it regardless of its harmful effects. “Just don’t eat it or sniff it and you’ll be fine,” JT said. “Let’s hurry.”

Everyone was struggling by the time they reached the edge of the crop fields. None of them had eaten since breakfast, and the Tarsus sun was dipping below the horizon line as they made their final step out of the fields. JT’s clothes were soaked in sweat and clung uncomfortably to his skin, and a quick glance around him showed the rest of the kids in a similar state.

Tom looked nothing short of awful. His unburnt skin was ashen and clammy, his eye drooped and his entire body almost rag dolled against Evaline’s body. Evaline, the angel, hadn’t complained once. She just shifted her body to better accommodate Tom’s weight and looked to JT for his next instructions. The other kids followed her gaze and looked at him expectantly.

When the hell had he become the leader?

They made it to the boulder field and were able to find a good shelter with the last bit of light in the sky before darkness descended upon the land. JT had a second where he thought of trying to build a fire, but luckily common sense kicked in quickly to remind him that he’d basically be building a massive billboard inviting the patrols to their new hideout. JT wasn’t too concerned about the inability to build a fire; the temperature this time of year would still be comfortable overnight.

What he _was_ concerned about was Tom.

Evaline had rested him against a rock wall, and Tom immediately melted into the cool support. With only starlight and the slowly acquired night vision, Tom somehow looked even worse. Though the darkness hid the severity and vividness of the burn, on the whole Tom looked sickly.

“He needs medicine.”

JT turned to Evaline, who had dropped to her knees next to Tom, wiping a stray hair out of his face.

“That hike really weakened him, and even a strong immune system would have trouble warding off infection with this burn,” she continued, staring at JT head-on now. “He needs antibiotics at the very least, but even that might not be enough to help him. He needs the good stuff, and quickly. He won’t last a week without it.”

“How d’you know all this?” JT asked, ignoring the thrum of fear that coursed through him after every word she spoke.

“My dad’s a nurse—was a nurse,” she corrected, voice wavering slightly. “He taught me basic first aid, and he had to work on the hydrozine explosion last year, he taught me about burns then. Tom’s is serious, he needs high grade burn cream. He’d need biografts and a regen too, but I don’t think that’s an option out here.” JT admired her ability to keep her emotions at bay as she focused on the issue at hand. She’d make an amazing nurse or doctor herself someday. He still had no idea how he was still functioning, but the less he thought about it the better. He had work to do.

JT wouldn’t be able to get anywhere while it was dark out, not without a light of any kind, so he’d have to travel at dawn. He’d have a very narrow window from when the sky started to brighten again to when the sun would be up and the colony would be abuzz with action. He had to be out of the colony before the breakfast ration started. There would be guards everywhere for sure, checking and triple checking IDs to make sure people were part of the ‘chosen’, checking to make sure they weren’t one of the few fugitives who had managed to escape the massacre. Not to mention, he didn’t want to leave Tom and the kids alone longer than he needed to.

JT had two options that he could think of to find the medicine Tom needed. The first was TGH, Tarsus IV General Hospital. The hospital was guaranteed to have the medicine Tom needed, but it was also in the Inner Ring. It would definitely be under heavy guard and thus there was a much higher chance of being found out, but it was the only way to guarantee that he’d find the medicine Tom needed.

The other option was to try the TALP medical clinic. Located in the Middle Ring, security would be far looser than in the Inner Ring. But less security had a massive trade off. The medical clinic wasn’t nearly as well stocked as the hospital, and the chances of finding the right medicine for Tom was slim. JT had been in the clinic once before when he sprained his wrist during rock climbing, and the memory wasn’t helping his confidence.

Guaranteed medicine and a high chance of getting caught, or a low chance of finding the right medicine but a safer journey.

**~Should JT: A, Go to the hospital, or B, Go to the school clinic?~ _(Voters chose "A")_**

He had to take the risk, he decided. Tom was in a bad way and would only get worse without the proper medicine. If he only had one shot at it, JT had to make it count. He looked over at Tom, who had unsurprisingly passed out, and nodded to himself in resolve.

“Evaline, have you ever been to Tarsus General?” he asked.

“A few times, yeah,” she said slowly, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“I need you to tell me as much as you can remember about the building,” JT said, settling on the ground like the rest of the kids. “Entrances, check points, where the burn unit is—”

“You can’t just waltz in, there’s gonna be guards everywhere!” she said.

“You just told me that Tom wouldn’t last a week without medicine, so that’s what I’m gonna get,” he said sharply. “Did you think I was just gonna sit here and watch him die?”

“I’m just saying, you need some sorta plan, and you’re not gonna get a good one overnight,” Evaline said placatingly, urging him to slow down and reconsider. “Tom will be fine for a few days and we can use that time to plan. You’re only gonna get one shot at this,” she added, also coming to the conclusion that his window of opportunity would be small.

JT nodded, settling down a bit. What had gotten into him? Normally he’d be in Evaline’s shoes telling Tom to slow down. “You’re right, a plan is good. I’m sorry I snapped at you,” he added, and Evaline nodded in acceptance. “In the meantime, we’ve gotta figure out what we’re gonna do for food,” he said, hearing a growling stomach from someone.

“Each section of the fields has its own break building, there might be snacks and stuff there,” one of the middle-aged boys of the group spoke up. “My dad works in the fields, he—he _worked_ in the fields...”

JT heard the first sniff and he knew it would only be downhill from there. Now that they were no longer running for their lives, they had the chance to stop and let the events of the last few hours sink in. They finally had a chance to process those emotions.

“I miss my momma and papa,” a little girl sniffed loudly, voice climbing in pitch as her throat closed in rising emotion.

Similar sentiments were echoed amongst the kids, and it wasn’t long before the tears started. The kids were clinging to each other as they sobbed, seeking out comfort from those that needed comforting themselves. JT felt Kevin’s little arms wrap around his torso as he buried his tear-streaked face into JT’s shirt, his whole body shaking against him. JT pulled him closer out of reflex and absently stroked the boy’s back to soothe him.

Four thousand people had died today.

Four thousand people had been massacred.

The nine of them had been sentenced to death along with them and yet somehow here they were, mourning the loss of their friends and families.

 _Denner died to save my life,_ JT remembered, his own eyes tearing up at the memory. _That woman died to save all of us…_

“What was her name?” JT asked, voice cracking on the question. “That woman who helped us get out.”

“Angelina Moulton,” Evaline answered softly, and JT saw the first tear fall from her eyes. “She was my sister.”

* * *

Three days later, JT had never felt more hungry in his life. With direction from Davin, the boy whose father worked in the fields, JT had scavenged some hidden snacks from the barracks in a manageable walking distance. He had also been able to tap into the field irrigation system, so at the bare minimum the group would have unlimited clean water. The snacks were few though, only a dozen granola bars to last over those three days, and JT had found himself unwilling to eat his full share with the youngest kids unable to withstand the clawing pain of hunger. As such, JT hadn’t had more than a bite over those whole three days, courtesy of a sick but stern Tom who claimed he wouldn’t be able to keep down another bite anyway. JT had also found a pack of ration bars the previous night that he estimated might last them two more days, but things were starting to look dire for their food situation. After getting Tom’s medicine, JT would immediately have to start planning a follow-up trip to stock up on some sort of food supplies.

At this point, JT and Evaline had worked out as solid of a plan as they’d been able to, given the circumstances. Evaline’s memories of the building proved to be invaluable thanks to her late mother’s smoking habits and her need to find a quick exit from the building to light up. There were quite a few side entrances that they’d been able to pick from, one of which was only a single staircase and corridor from the burn unit.

The only hiccups with their infiltration and exit plan were that they weren’t sure where exactly medicine was stored in the unit, or how JT was going to access it once he found it. Unfortunately, they just didn’t have the knowledge to figure that out in advance, and he didn’t have time for a scout run. He’d have to figure it out on the fly.

JT had briefed the kids about his plan and where he was headed, but otherwise told them to sleep while he headed off. Tom, the stubborn bastard, and Evaline both woke up to see him off while the others slept soundly in their hideaway.

“You don’t have to do this, JT,” Tom wheezed for the n’th time.

“You’d do the same for me,” JT rebuffed gently.

“You wouldn’t’ve gotten shot in the face,” Tom said, wincing as his grin pulled on the burnt skin.

“I woulda been hit right in the mouth,” JT said, shaking his head.

“What a shame, you wouldn’t be able to conjugate anymore verbs,” Tom said lightly. JT let out a wet laugh as he reached out for Tom’s hand and gave it a squeeze. Tom squeezed back as hard as he could manage. “Make sure you bring back the right meds,” Tom said, but JT could read the intense look on his face and only heard _‘Make sure you come back.’_

“I will,” JT said, giving one last squeeze. He turned to Evaline and she gave him a tight hug. “You take care of them, okay?” he said, hugging her just as closely.

“I’ll see you in a few hours,” she said in answer, pulling away with a nod.

JT did a quick check of himself to make sure he had the phaser he’d taken from the guard safely tucked away and the empty backpack he’d found in one of the field barracks, and with the sky just starting to lighten, he started out.

The trek back through the dead fields seemed ten times harder than it had three days ago, which surprised him considering he wasn’t carrying a six year old on his back this time. But three days with no sustenance and a lack of adrenaline proved to be severe hindrance that JT hadn’t anticipated, and he hoped he’d be in decent enough shape for the return trip.

Despite the added strain, JT knew he had to push himself if he wanted to get to the hospital and back to Ring 3 before breakfast. It had taken roughly three hours just to traverse Ring 3 with the group, but he’d need to make the journey in half the time if he wanted to stay on schedule.

The sun had already come up by the time JT made it to the separation of Rings 2 and 3. He knew well enough to avoid the gardens, knowing that would be under tighter watch after the deaths there, and it was quicker to bypass them anyway. The hospital was on the same side of Ring 1 as the Community Center, but it was farther away from their hideout location.

JT knew the safest way into the inner rings would be by travelling between the district lines. There was a sheltered route that ran along the edge of Residential District 1 and one of the IRT service parks that was likely to be less guarded than within the Res District itself, and there was nothing of use in the service park itself that was worth guarding. Reaching the hospital from the border of Rings 1 and 2 however would be a significant challenge.

He found himself near one of the Ring 1 IRT stations as he stopped to catch his breath before his next move. In normal circumstances, he’d just hop onto one of the shuttles and travel to the next IRT station, almost directly outside of the hospital, but guards were checking and triple checking IDs of everyone who entered and exited the station. He and Evaline had thought of this however, and while he couldn’t access the underground tracks from the stations, there were several maintenance hatches along the line, one of which was right outside this IRT station.

JT had never played poker before, but he was starting to think he should pick up the game. He managed to not only open the maintenance hatch and sneak into the tunnels undetected, but he made it along the entire line and back up the exit hatch without a single encounter. He hoped this was indicative of the security throughout the day because he would very much appreciate an easy return trip. It wasn’t in the plan, but maybe he’d even use the maintenance tunnels to get to Ring 3 as well. And he could use these tunnels to make follow up trips to get food and other supplies.

While JT had expected heightened security, the lack thereof indicated something much worse. JT had been operating under the assumption that the guards would be looking for those that had escaped, and while that was likely still true, maybe JT had overestimated the need. They had been so focused on getting themselves out of there that they hadn’t stopped to see if others had made it out as well. The thought almost knocked the wind out of him, but there was a very real chance that the nine of them were the only ones that managed to escape the massacre.

And if that was true, how necessary was it for the guards to go out of their way to find nine fugitives? Sure, they were the only survivors and witnesses of a heinous crime, so security was bolstered where it would already need to be, like IRT stations, but expending extra resources beyond that just to find them would be wasteful. They were certainly high profile targets now, but nine people, nine _children,_ were hardly a ‘threat to the well-being of society.’

JT found himself about a block from the hospital as he emerged from the maintenance hatch, careful to check his surroundings before pulling himself up and out of the hole. A quick look at the sky showed that he had maybe thirty minutes before he’d need to start heading back to the Ring 2/3 border.

It seemed as though the curfew had been lifted because there were many early-riser civilians walking around in the main streets. JT would have to trust that none of them would rat him out to guards if they saw him, but he had no idea what the colonists had been told about the other half of them. There could be a bounty on his head for all he knew, and a promise of food could outweigh the immorality of turning him in.

Knowing there was not much he could do about it, JT decided to cast the thought out of his mind and proceed with his mission. The door he needed to access was on the right side of the building from where he was, so he’d have to make a break for the side alley by crossing the main street. JT took a deep breath.

And he ran.

* * *

Sam sat at one of the tables in the dining hall, slowly chewing his cinnamon oatmeal as he let the surrounding conversation pass over him. Throughout his life, Sam had gravitated towards like-minded people, and as such, the people he had befriended at TALP were of similar intellect as well. As it was, most of his friends had been spared the “colony cleansing,” as Kodos had referred to it. Due to their aptitude scores, they had been deemed worthy of contributing to the colony, while those with low scores had been part of the cut. Those with persistent medical issues had also been on the wrong side of the cleanse, despite their aptitude scores; Denner had been cut due to his color-blindness.

The entirety of the Tarsus public school system had been on the cleanse—kill would be a more accurate term—list, as well as TALP students under the age of fourteen. Even if JT had been a year older, Sam reckoned he still would’ve been on the wrong side of everything due to his allergies. Sam still hadn’t gotten used to the empty room, and he suspected he never would. One day his little brother had been annoying him with those goddamned verb conjugations, and the next, his side of the room was completely silent.

On the day of the cleanse— _the massacre,_ Sam thought furiously, _there’s no other word for it_ —Sam had been reading idly in his room as he waited for JT and Tom to return when a harsh knock on the door startled him enough to make him drop his PADD. 

The knock seemed to serve only as a warning rather than inquiry for entrance because the door slid open before Sam could even get his feet on the floor, and two Tarsus Authority Patrol (TAP) officers barged into the room.

“Where is James Tiberius Kirk?” one TAP barked at him as the other searched the room.

“He’s at the ration—the fuck are you doing?” Sam said, jumping to his feet as the TAP ripped the mattress off his brother’s bed. TAP 1 held Sam away while TAP 2 continued ripping the room apart, apparently looking for something. “Hey, what the fuck is your problem?” Sam shouted, but neither of the TAPs responded.

After the hurricane of assholes finished tearing the room apart, TAP 1 finally let go of him as TAP 2 said into his comm “Room 207 is clear.” and left the room without so much as an explanation.

“You can’t just tear up my room and leave without explaining yourselves!” Sam hollered, following them out of the room, but the TAPs ignored him and repeated the process on the next room— _“Where is Oliver Ayre Masterson?”_ —as Sam watched on. He looked down the hall and saw other people poking their heads out of their rooms.

“What’s going on?” Deval, one of Sam’s closest friends at TALP, asked from across the hall.

Sam shrugged, glaring at the TAP officers as they moved on to the next room _(“Room 209 is clear”)._ “I dunno, these _assholes_ ripped up my room asking for JT then just moved on,” he said loudly, hoping to be overheard.

A TAP officer that he hadn’t noticed before came from the other end of the hallway and surprisingly answered, “We’re making sure everyone is where they should be,” he said vaguely.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Deval’s roommate, Asher, asked.

“You didn’t do this while we were at the morning ration, my room looked fine when I got back,” Sam said, eyes narrowing in suspicion. “You were looking for something, presumably my brother and anyone else at the afternoon ration. Why the hell would they be here and not at the Community Center getting food credits?”

The TAP officer didn’t respond to his questions and only said, “Get back in your rooms and await Governor Kodos’s announcement.”

“What announcement?” Deval asked.

Sam glanced back in his room quickly to check the time and noted it was only 1600. “The afternoon ration started an hour ago, they should all be there for another two hours at least, if our session was anything to go by.” Sam glared at the officer in suspicion. “Something happened at the ration, didn’t it?”

For the first time, the TAP officer dropped his professionalism and gave him a sneer. “No wonder they spared you kids, you’re supposedly the smart ones, after all.”

Sam felt a cold pit form in his stomach. “Spared us from what?”

“Might as well tell you, it’s already happened and you’ll find out eventually,” the TAP officer said flippantly. “Tarsus has been cleansed of the lesser half of the colony. There wasn’t enough resources to sustain eight thousand people so the Governor had to cut the number down. We’ll be much better off now until supplies can get here.”

Sam’s face went white, processing yet not quite comprehending what he’d just been told. The colony had been ‘cleansed of the lesser half,’ surely he didn’t mean—

“They’re dead?” Asher said in horror. “All of them?”

“It’s for the greater good, kids,” the TAP officer said with an unconcerned shrug.

Years of conditioning under Frank’s authority was the only thing that kept Sam from attacking the officer, but Sam thought that even Frank wouldn’t be so casual about the massacre of four thousand people. How could this man stand here and say the genocide of their friends and family was for ‘the greater good’ with a straight face, without an ounce of remorse?

“My brother is _dead_ and you’re gonna tell me it’s for the _greater good?”_ Sam seethed, finding his voice.

“Better him than you.”

“Better _you_ than him,” Sam fired back, angry tears falling from his eyes.

The TAP officer shrugged again, wholly uncaring as he received an all-clear signal from the officers at the end of the hall. “It’s already done, nothing to do about it now. Standby for the governor’s address,” he added before leaving the hall in stunned silence.

In the three days since then, Sam still couldn’t find it within himself to justify the deaths of half the colony just so the rest of them could survive. He noticed the sentiment was shared with others who had lost loved ones in the massacre, but he was sickened to notice other classmates of his willing to move on with their lives like nothing ever happened. Only the memory of his docile little brother kept him from decking a person who tactlessly commented “At least the food lines are shorter” that morning in the breakfast line.

The TALP itself tried to ignore the sudden loss of participants as best it could, but some things were hard to overlook. All xenolinguistics classes had been cancelled because the instructor, Hoshi Sato, had been amongst those killed in the massacre, and Sam was now one of only five students in his xenobiology class, once a class of thirty.

“Have you heard?” a hushed voice said, pulling him out of his thoughts, and Sam looked up at Deval’s harried face. “Of course you haven’t heard, you wouldn’t be here—”

 _“What_ haven’t I heard?” Sam interrupted shortly, very used to Deval’s prolonged delivery of the daily campus gossip.

“They caught a massacre survivor,” Deval said, voice barely audible over the din of the mess hall as he looked around the room.

Sam dropped his spoon, now completely disinterested in his meal. “People _survived?”_ he asked incredulously. “They never said—”

“Probably didn’t want the word to get out,” Deval said with a shrug. “But listen, Sam...” he said, leaning over the table to get closer, “they haven’t released the name of the guy they caught, but...it was a kid. And the description sounded a lot like your brother.”

Sam’s mouth went dry as he searched Deval’s face, looking for any sign of a perverse practical joke, but he found nothing. “Are you sure?” he asked finally.

Deval’s face pinched. “Not a hundred percent, but sure enough to tell you about it. Look,” he said, leaning away with another glance around the room, “they’re gonna have some sort of public thing to announce the capture, some sort of publicity thing to make sure people don’t help any of the fugitives—”

 _“‘Fugitives?’_ He’s a kid!” Sam said angrily, but Deval waved a hand to hush him.

“Not my words, just telling you what I heard. I figured you’d want to know before...”

“Before what?”

Deval’s face screwed up again as he said, “They’re gonna make an example of him, Sam. I dunno what that entails but it can’t be anything good. If they think he’s not alone they probably won’t kill him, but...it could still be bad.”

Sam suddenly felt nauseous and let his head fall into his hands. “When is this happening?” he asked thickly.

“Noon,” Deval said. “I’m sorry, man. Maybe they won’t do anything to him, he’s just a kid after all.”

“Yeah,” Sam said skeptically. After all, he knew first hand just how awful adults could be to children. Sam sighed heavily, rubbing his face. “Maybe.”

In the couple hours since Deval had talked to him, word had spread about the captured massacre survivor in the form of a colony-wide announcement. The ‘fugitive’s’ description had been left out of the announcement, but it had been revealed that they had been captured inside TGH. It was also announced that there would be a speech made by Governor Kodos addressing the incident that would be mandatory viewing for all colonists.

It was both a good thing and a bad thing that the governor’s address was to be live broadcasted to the colony from an undisclosed location versus a live public event. The good thing was that no one would need to hold Sam back from murdering the governor if he dared hurt his little brother. The bad thing was that Sam wouldn’t be able to murder the governor if he dared hurt his little brother.

The bad definitely outweighed the good.

While nothing had confirmed that the captured survivor was infact JT, Sam hadn’t been able to shake the building feeling in his gut that his brother had somehow found a way to survive the massacre. He knew he was setting himself up for a big fall if he was wrong, but he knew the chance was high and he’d held onto that. If it wasn’t JT, at least he wouldn’t have to go through whatever Kodos had planned for this survivor.

The thought wasn’t comforting at all.

The entirety of the (remaining) TALP students were herded into the campus auditorium at quarter of noon, the Tarsus IV insignia on display on the big screen at the front of the room. Sam chose a seat near the back on the aisle in case he needed to make a quick exit, and Deval sat on his side in silent support. Sam couldn’t find his voice, but he hoped Deval knew how grateful he was.

In less time than he would’ve liked, the screen at the front of the room flickered, and the insignia was replaced with the face of Governor Kodos as he stared head-on at the camera with a stern gaze. Sam wanted to smack him.

“My fellow colonists of Tarsus IV,” he began, voice low and solemn. “As you know, we have had to take drastic measures to ensure the survival of our colony.” There were several dissenting sounds from the audience at those words, but Kodos pressed on without the feedback. “But there are some that look to challenge our survival. We have managed to apprehend one of these fugitives, who looked to steal precious resources from you, and we know more exist.”

Kodos turned to someone off screen and nodded slightly, and scuffing sounds could be heard in the background. Satisfied at whatever was happening, Kodos looked back at the screen to resume his speech.

“Rest assured that we will do everything in our power to make sure these fugitives are captured, but in the meantime, heed my words. I cannot stress enough the damage these fugitives would do to our way of life and I urge you all not to encourage their illegal and harmful activity. You have all been gathered today as a reminder. A reminder that the illegal activity of these fugitives will not be tolerated, nor will the aiding and abetting of any colonist. The punishment for anyone found to be helping these criminals in any way is thus...”

The camera panned away from Kodos, and Sam suddenly felt his breakfast push insistently at the back of his throat. A small figure knelt next to a wooden post, torso bare and hands tied above them to the post, back facing outward toward the camera. He couldn’t see the person’s face, but Sam didn’t need the confirmation to know. That was his little brother, and from the looks of it, they were about to...about to...

JT’s body was visibly trembling on screen, and while the observation made Sam feel dizzy with nausea, he noticed that JT didn’t appear injured (yet). If he’d been caught breaking into the hospital, it hadn’t been for himself. Sam didn’t think JT would risk capture for someone other than a close friend, but at the same time, he knew JT would never be able to sit idly by if someone needed help. Sam wondered just how many people had survived. It was most likely that Tom had been injured somehow, which at least meant Tom had survived the massacre as well. Maybe Denner had survived too.

A TAP officer, who either didn’t have kids, was heartless, or both, stepped into frame, an old cat-o-nine tails held loosely in his hand. _Fuck, they’re not actually going through with this...he’s a kid, they can’t...they wouldn’t…_

Apparently they would.

The first crack seemed to echo in the auditorium, but was quickly drowned out by JT’s scream.

Sam remembered in stark clarity the first time Frank had laid a hand on his little brother while he was there to witness it. JT had always been a quiet child, and thus the voice that erupted from his little lungs when Frank first struck him had startled Sam. In that moment, he promised himself he would never again let harm come to his little brother while he could do something about it.

This was torture. Torture of course for JT, but also for Sam, forced to watch, forced to listen, and unable to do a single thing to stop it.

Sam lasted for one more strike before he was out of his chair and in the hallway, huddled against the wall as he shoved his palms to both ears. The broadcast played on every available screen and speaker, so while Sam could escape the visual, JT’s screams continued to bounce off the long hallway.

Sam was vaguely aware of Deval kneeling in front of him, hands gripping his forearms in an attempt to steady him. Sam wasn’t sure how long Deval had been there or how much time had passed since he left the auditorium. Time seemed to fold and wrinkle around him, the same sounds attacking him from every direction—

“I have to help him,” Sam babbled blindly. “I gotta help him, I gotta do something—”

“What though?” Deval asked, and Sam was glad that he hadn’t outright rebuffed him.

“I gotta get him outta there, away from Kodos,” Sam said with no plan in mind, just an intense need to protect his brother from that _monster._

“Okay, but how can we do that?”

“Break into the Governor’s Compound.”

Sam looked up at the new voice and found Asher standing next to them. “Why there?” Deval asked when Sam didn’t respond. “Wouldn’t they keep him at the TAP station—?”

“The holding cells are being utilized for other things,” Asher said, shaking his head. Sam and Deval didn’t bother to ask how he knew this; Asher’s father was a member of colony government. “They just said he’s being held in an undisclosed location, and the Compound is the only place they could get away with hiding a high profile person like that.”

As Asher said the words, Sam became aware that the torturous sounds had ceased around them and TALP students were exiting the auditorium out of the main doors. May it have been intentional or not, people seemed to be avoiding the back exit Sam had escaped out of.

“I’m getting him out of there,” Sam said resolutely, pushing himself up and away from the wall.

“We’ll help however we can,” Deval offered readily, and Asher nodded shortly in agreement.

Sam gave both of them a tight hug, unable to express his gratitude with more than a “Thanks, guys.”

* * *

As part of the TALP Civics class, Sam had toured the Governor’s Compound a few months prior. As ‘advanced’ students, they were given the VIP tour and saw many locations that were typically off-limits to the public. As such, Sam had been in every wing of the ground and upper floors and, thanks to some map-hoarding by Deval, he was fairly well-versed in their layouts. The only place left unexplored was the basement, and it was the ideal place to keep a prisoner if not at the TAP station; it was surely where they’d be keeping JT.

According to Asher, there were two possible entrances into the Compound that didn’t require an ID check: the supply drop-off and the maintenance hatch. The supply entrance wasn’t ideal despite being the easiest to access because it required crossing the entire ground floor to reach the only basement-access stairway (lifts would require IDs), so that left the maintenance hatch, which would deposit him right in the basement. From there he’d be in the blind, but it was a much better start.

Sam had the benefit of not needing to sneak around anywhere until he reached the Compound, and from there it was just a matter of making sure the coast was clear before opening the hatch.

Sam descended the ladder rungs without issue, and found the corridor he’d dropped into deserted. He was delighted to notice that there didn’t seem to be any security cameras in the area, which fit the low-scale fit of the basement floor. It was almost two centuries behind the rest of the building in construction, which was an odd choice considering it was all built at the same time. He figured it was probably a budget choice.

As he moved along the corridor, he noted no points of interest—the only doors Sam had come across had been unlocked and filled with miscellaneous supplies—until he reached a crossroads. Sam could continue down the same corridor, or he could turn right or left down the intersecting corridor. At first glance, nothing distinguished any direction from another, and Sam had no knowledge of the layout of the basement. He’d have to guess.

**~Should Sam: A, Go left, B, Go straight, or C, Go right?~ _(Voters chose "C")_**

_Gotta start somewhere,_ Sam thought. He took a deep breath, and he turned right.

* * *

If waking up after Frank had punished him for the car incident sucked, this was a thousand times worse.

At least when he woke up on the shuttle, he was lying on a comfortable surface. Here, he woke up to sharp needles in his knees (metaphorical, thankfully) and stiff arms strung above his head. His shoulders screamed as he moved, and JT pressed his face into his arm to muffle the pained sound that left him.

Everything had gone according to plan until JT had reached the burn unit. The staff that JT had passed in the hallway hadn’t spared him a second glance; they were all either busy at work or simply uncaring of the visitor in the hallways. Many patients had visitors and doctors and nurses had better things to do than check the ID of everyone they passed. JT made it to the supply room with no issue. It was getting in and out of the room that ended poorly.

Well, getting in actually wasn’t that hard. All JT had to do was wait for a nurse to leave the room, and he caught the door before it slid closed and he slipped inside. What he hadn’t known about the room was that there was a security measure that required staff to log any changes in inventory with their IDs before removing items from the walls. The moment JT found what he was looking for and lifted a single container off the shelf, a silent alarm sounded, unbeknownst to JT who continued to search the room for other needed supplies.

The room only had one exit, so when the door opened and TGH security rushed the room, JT had no chance. He’d barely made it a step before being stunned. After that, everything had been going by in a blur. He vaguely remembered waking up in the middle of some speech Kodos was making, but he didn’t remember much after the lashing he’d received. He’d passed out at some point during that— _thankfully_ —before waking up in the cell he was currently residing in.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been in here, but Kodos had already stopped by three times to interrogate him on the whereabouts of the other massacre survivors. Apparently there had been an eyewitness who noticed him and Tom leaving the scene of the two dead guards, so they knew there were at least three survivors: JT, Tom, and whoever Tom had been holding the guard back from in the first place.

Beyond the eyewitness account, JT figured they could probably go through all the dead bodies manually and figure out who from their list was missing, but even with their names, he still needed JT to tell him where the others were hiding. In exchange for giving up the others, Kodos was offering to drop the murder charges on him from that incident.

JT had no intention of taking the offer, just as he knew Kodos had no intention of even sparing his life, let alone dropping any charges against him. It wasn’t worth betraying the kids. Nothing was worth that.

Something clicked in front of him, and shortly after JT heard the creak of an old-fashioned door swing open. There was silence for a moment, and it lasted long enough that JT had almost given in to the instinct that wanted to ask ‘Who’s there?’ when—

“JT.”

JT wilted, jostling the chains above him. Really, who else would it have been?

“Have you reconsidered my offer?” JT heard a faint click sound again, different this time and from somewhere above him.

“Not much to consider,” he rasped, throat scratchy and hoarse from his treatment.

“Oh no, don’t be like that, JT,” Kodos said, voice sounding both soothing and mocking as a chair scraped the floor in front of him. JT flinched as he felt a hand by his face, but he didn’t have much range of motion and a moment later the blindfold was pulled down his face, roughly catching on his nose before settling loosely around his neck.

JT didn’t have to wait long for his eyes to adjust to the dimly lit room. Kodos sat in a wooden chair no more than a yard away, still managing to loom over him from his position, and a TAP officer stood silently on the edge of the room. A metal cord swayed slightly behind Kodos’s head, connecting to an old light in the ceiling. The room itself was nondescript, concrete (or some equivalent material) walls, floors, and possibly the ceiling, surrounding him on all sides, and a metal door with an old knob handle. JT felt like he was trapped in a 21st century era holovid.

Kodos was looking at him with an infuriatingly calm gaze, like he wasn’t sitting in front of his thirteen year old torture victim. Like he wasn’t about to interrogate him again.

“I’m not asking much of you,” Kodos said, tipping his head slightly.

“You’re asking everything,” JT muttered, averting eye contact.

“A few people are hardly anything,” Kodos contradicted lightly. “Nothing compared to the four thousand lives you’re sacrificing for their freedom. And what kind of freedom is that exactly? The freedom to starve? To die alone without your providing hand? One of them is already on their way out, you never did get that medicine to them.”

JT flinched hard at the reminder, unable to avoid giving Kodos the satisfaction. What kind of shape was Tom in? Or the rest of them? They only had two days worth of food when he left, how long had he been here?

“I just want to know two things,” Kodos said, voice tinged with a hint of smugness. “How many others are there? And where are you hiding them?”

JT kept his mouth shut, unwilling to say a word that might unintentionally give something away.

Kodos let out an exaggerated sigh, standing up and reaching to his belt for something. “I don’t want to do this, JT,” he said, not sounding regretful in the slightest, “but you leave me no choice. Only the worthy can survive, and I will not allow you to harbor your fellow imperfections and jeopardize order.” JT saw a glint of light from Kodos’s hand and noted the small blade resting comfortably in his palm.

Kodos disappeared from his line of sight, and with his arms chained above him JT couldn’t turn around to look at him. A moment later, the edge of the knife trailed lightly over the half-healed welts on his back, feather touches that were both a reminder of what Kodos had already (ordered) done and a threat of what he was capable of and about to do. Despite the miniscule pressure applied, the sharp edge still agitated the already sensitive raised skin and JT squirmed to get away from the source of discomfort. His movement only prompted Kodos to latch a firm hand in the crease between his neck and shoulder to steady him as he slowly applied more pressure with the blade, still not enough to break skin but more than enough to cause pain from the existing injuries.

JT whimpered as the blade ran across a particularly sensitive area, knowing yet dreading what was coming next. He’d seen holovids with Sam—spy movies and action movies and the like—where the hero was interrogated and tortured. Where the hero kept a brave face, made snarky comments, and ultimately never gave in to what the bad guy wanted from them.

He didn’t feel like a hero. He _wasn’t_ a hero. He was just a clumsy kid who was stupid enough to get caught. He wouldn’t be able to keep a brave face— _hadn’t_ been able to already—or make smart aleck responses. He wasn’t ready for this at all.

But JT wouldn’t talk. He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t—

The blade broke skin and JT knew he wouldn’t last.

* * *

The right hallway was a dead end, without even a single door to check out. Sam figured the unfruitful hallway could have been worse; while he’d wasted several minutes, he also hadn’t come across any guards, so that was a plus.

Doubling back, Sam took a right at the intersection, now taking the original straight path. The more open and unlocked doors he passes, the more his nerves ate at him. Nothing seemed to be secure down here, would they really risk hiding a prisoner in an area like this?

Sam reached another dead end, and he kicked the wall in frustration. The longer it took to find JT, the more Kodos could be hurting him at this very moment. He sprinted back towards the intersection, hoping the last hallway would give some sort of—

“Stop!”

Sam skidded to a halt, seeing the vague form of several bodies ahead of him in the intersection, phasers raised in his direction. He started to pivot on his heel, but paused when he remembered the dead end he had just come from. He was boxed in; he’d have to fight. Sam shuffled on the balls of his feet, ready to move if the group initiated action—

“Identify yourself!”

Huh. That was odd. Sam didn’t think the guards would bother to ask for identification; he obviously wasn’t in a TAP uniform and he was trespassing in a restricted area. Why bother asking for identification when they could just stun him—or worse—and move on?

Unless they weren’t TAP officers.

“You first!” Sam called, not relaxing his stance. Even if they weren’t TAPs, they still might not be friendly.

“We’re Starfleet officers, my name is Christopher Pike,” one of them said, lowering his phaser while the rest kept them trained on Sam’s position.

Sam narrowed his eyes. Sure, he’d like to believe Starfleet had finally arrived and saved the day, but anyone could claim they were Starfleet. “Rank and station?” he asked, waiting to hear some kind of folly from the man.

“Lieutenant Commander, _USS Enterprise,”_ he said promptly. “We’re responding to the relief call. Now who are you?”

 _The_ Enterprise? _There’s no fucking way, of all the ships that could stop by…_ Sam still wasn’t convinced. Anyone could know the name of the flagship, and it was easy to come up with a rank. But if they really were from the _Enterprise,_ there was one way to know...

“Who’s your Deputy Chief of Engineering?”

There was a pause, and Sam tensed himself, ready for a fight—

“Winona Kirk.” The response was tinged with uncertainty, but it sounded more like confusion from the question that was asked rather than the person who filled the position. These people really were Starfleet after all, and what’s more, it was his mother’s ship. Help was actually here. “Kid, if you don’t talk to us, we’ll have to bring you in—”

“I’m Sam—George Kirk, Winona’s son,” Sam said hurriedly, rushing forward towards his new allies. The group tensed at his sudden rush of them, but he was in a hurry and he couldn’t stop for caution now that he knew they could help. He could see faces and such now, but while he didn’t recognize any of the group, he felt much more at ease seeing the Starfleet delta pinned to each of their chests.

The only one not aiming a phaser at him, LCDR Pike, looked at him critically for a moment. “Winona’s sons are on Earth,” he said finally.

“It’s a long story, but Mom doesn’t know we’re here,” Sam said, keeping eye contact with him. “We’ve both been here for a few months now, and if you ask her, she’ll say she hasn’t spoken to us in that entire time frame.” When Pike raised a brow at him and no other action was taken by the group, Sam let out an aggravated sigh. “Look! If you need proof just call my Mom and ask! I’ll tell you my birthday, my blood type, my SEERS number, whatever the fuck you want, but I don’t have time to just stand here while you stare me down! My brother’s in trouble and standing around while you try to decide if I’m lying or not is only gonna make things worse!”

“Woah now kid, calm down,” Pike said placatingly. “We’ll check your story, but we need you to answer some things for us. We don’t know many details about what happened down here, just that the colony experienced a famine and—”

“And Kodos killed half the colony and now he’s probably torturing my brother right now!” Sam interrupted angrily. “There’s your info, let’s _go!”_

“We know about the Massacre,” an officer behind them said, “but—”

“Rawlings,” Pike said shortly, raising a hand to silence him. “All of you, you can stop aiming at the boy. He’s certainly got Winnie’s temper,” he said wryly, drawing a snort from someone. Sam glared at the comment but Pike continued on before he could rebut. “Jimmy’s your brother, right?”

 _“Yes,”_ Sam said, relieved he was finally getting somewhere with these people. “I’m down here because he was captured by Kodos’s men and I’m trying to break him out of here. I’ve already checked these two hallways,” he said, pointing towards the respective directions, “and that one is the last one I haven’t checked.”

“Alright,” Pike said. “You’re staying with Lieutenant Colway—”

“Like hell I’m staying—!”

 _“Behind the group,”_ Pike finished, giving him a steady look. “I’m not gonna leave you out here in hostile territory.”

Sam nodded, willing to go along with this arrangement. As long as he could be there when they found his brother, he’d go along with them. It was actually nice to have the added firepower—he didn’t know what he would’ve done if he came across TAPs on his own. Probably the major flaw in his plan in the first place.

The group proceeded down the final hallway in a kind of diamond formation, Sam in the back with LT Colway a half step behind his right. The man behind Pike would stop at each door and test it while Pike kept point to make sure their path was still clear. The method was slower than Sam’s previous method of checking each room, but he figured Starfleet was looking for more threats while Sam had just moved on with no sight of his brother.

While their method made sense, Sam was quickly becoming irritated by the slow pace. He was about to complain when he heard a muted shout from down the hall. Sam lunged forward, only to be stopped by a vice-grip on his shoulder.

“What’re you doing, let me go-mmmph!” A hand clamped over his mouth, and he sent a heated glare at Pike who returned it and motioned for him to quiet down. Sam settled down but held up his stare as Pike motioned for the LT to let him go.

“What’re you expecting to do?” Pike whispered sternly. “Does he sound like he’s alone in there? Were you planning on barging in only to get captured yourself?”

Sam averted his eyes, knowing he’d been getting ahead of himself. But that was JT’s voice, he knew it, even if he couldn’t make out the words currently being yelled. It was just like the video, but now Sam was close enough to do something and stop it. But Pike was right, he needed to slow down, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to help JT at all. He might end up making things worse for him.

Apparently satisfied that he’d gotten through to him, Pike beckoned his team to creep closer to the door. Sam clenched his fists as they got closer, now starting to hear the words being yelled.

_“I can’t—! I don’t—agh!”_

Sam felt himself shaking, concentrating all of his willpower towards not breaking down the door himself to get to his brother. A hand landed on his shoulder again, but this time it was comforting rather than restrictive.

Pike’s ear was against the door, simultaneously checking the lock as the other officers moved into what Sam assumed was a standard breach formation. Sam was pushed behind LT Colway now, safely assuming he wouldn’t be going anywhere now that his brother had been located.

“Sounds like one captive and one hostile,” Pike reported quietly, “but there could easily be more that just aren’t speaking. Rawlings, stun on sight as the door opens, Chokya, I want you at knee level to neutralize the opposite side of the room as I distract the center. Colway, at our six once we breach the room, we don’t know if there’s anyone else down here. Kid, _stay with Colway,”_ Pike stressed. For once, Sam wasn’t hard pressed to argue; he had no intention of getting in the middle of a firefight without fire of his own.

Just as Pike held up a hand to count down, phaser raised in the other, JT let out a piercing scream. Instinctually, Sam lunged forward again, but luckily (or not), the hand was still on his shoulder and held him back. JT let out a loud, strangled whimper, and Sam rocked back on his heels, barely registering the blood dripping from his clenched fists as his eyes shut tightly against pressure he felt building.

 _“Okay...okay, just… **stop** ,”_ JT’s defeated voice could be heard saying, and Sam hated it, hated imagining what JT had been put through to sound like that, and finally— _finally_ —Pike counted down with his fingers, three—two—one—

Pike flung the door open, and Sam ducked instinctively as a phaser blast soared over Pike’s head and into the hallway. Sam waited for another blast, but it seemed Rawlings was quite the shot and had neutralized the threat. Pike and Chokya moved, and Colway shoved him forward into the room, sandwiching him between Chokya and herself.

In just those couple moments, movement ceased around him, the smell of recently discharged phasers fresh on his nose as Colway dragged him farther into the room to check that the man shot was really down for the count, finally letting go of him as she checked. Sam noted it was a TAP officer before Colway withdrew and set her focus on the door, giving Sam his first unobstructed view of the room.

Pike and his team had breached the room in all of two seconds, downing the single TAP officer in the room in one shot and lining up the only other threat in the room, Kodos himself. But unlike the TAP officer, Kodos had a shield; his little brother.

JT looked worse than he had in the colony broadcast. JT was strung up to the ceiling, enough slack given so he could kneel on the ground but not much else, and Sam saw blood around the wrist cuffs and down JT’s forearms. He was still shirtless, and while his front had been left alone then, there were several dark bruises along his torso, and angry red blotches both near his collarbone and his navel. A small blow torch lay discarded by JT’s knee, leaving no doubt in his mind what had caused the severe burns. A trail of blood dripped from JT’s mouth, and there was another streak of dried blood down his cheek originating from his hairline. Sam couldn’t see JT’s back at all, but if the bloody knife that Kodos was currently holding to his neck was any indication, it likely didn’t look good. Not to mention the work that had been done to it on live television.

JT was trembling like he had been during the broadcast, but more distressingly, his eyes looked clouded and dull. Not unconscious or anything, but like he’d lost his will to fight, just as his earlier words had implied.

“Unless you’d like to recover a corpse, you’ll put the phasers down,” Kodos said cooly, one hand fisted in JT’s hair while the other pressed the blade harder against JT’s neck. JT’s eyes snapped shut at the added pressure. “Now.”

“It’s over, Kodos,” Pike said, holding his phaser steady. “There’s nowhere to go.”

“What did I tell you, JT,” Kodos said, angling his mouth closer to JT’s ear but keeping the same volume. The corner of his mouth drew back into a cruel smirk as JT seemed to curl into himself—as much as he could manage. “No one cares whether you live or die—”

“I care!”

The sound that erupted out of him felt raw, it felt primal. He couldn’t move while that blade was pressed so precariously against his brother’s neck, but he could push all of that emotion, all that building fear and anger and pain into something vocal—

“JT, _I care!”_ Sam yelled, desperate for JT to acknowledge something other than Kodos’s toxic words. “Don’t listen to whatever bullshit he’s been spewing to you, I’m right here, kiddo, okay?”

JT’s eyes fluttered open, almost cautiously, as his gaze trailed slowly over towards Sam. His eyes widened in shock as he noticed Sam’s presence for the first time since the Starfleet team had stormed the room. “Sam?” he croaked, voice hoarse from overuse.

“I’m right here, Jimmy,” Sam said quickly, reverting to old habits. “I’m right—”

“This is all very _quaint_ and _stirring,”_ Kodos drawled, and reality smacked him across the face. He could say as many words of encouragement and comfort as he wanted, but it wouldn’t change the fact that his baby brother’s life was still in the hands of a mad man. “But none of you seem to care that I’ve asked for you to lower your phasers, or risk JT’s life here,” he said, shifting the hand in his hair down his face until he had a grip around JT’s jaw.

“Get your paws off him!” Sam hollered, finding his body lurching forward again, but freezing when the blade in Kodos’s hand moved. Kodos dragged the blade tip along the column of JT’s throat, forcing his chin up to expose more of the fragile expanse of skin. The tip of the blade pressed close enough so a barely visible line of red painted the path of the blade behind it.

Sam could feel himself vibrating in suppressed anger, and Kodos kept eye contact with him, smirking at the effect he knew he was having on the elder Kirk as he dragged the blade up along the base of his jaw in a perverse caress. “How do you expect to stop me?” he taunted, the blade dragging higher—

He heard the phaser blast before he registered Kodos’s body seizing up then promptly crumpling to the floor, blade dropping next to him with a clatter. A dark line of blood dripped from a fresh wound on JT’s jawline between his ear and mouth, but otherwise he looked unharmed from the abrupt phaser blast.

He was vaguely aware of Pike moving to secure Kodos as he rushed to JT, dropping to his knees in front of him as JT looked at him like he wasn’t real. “Sam,” he whispered, voice thick with disbelief. “You’re really here.”

“I’m here,” he said softly, hands cradling JT’s face as tears blurred his vision. “Fuck, I’m so sorry, I should’ve found you earlier—” Sam rambled, pressing his forehead to JT’s.

“Sam...” JT mumbled again, drifting in and out of lucidity. “Sam...”

“Kid, I’m gonna cut his restraints,” Rawlings’s said from behind him. “Can you hold—?”

“Yeah, I got him,” Sam said promptly. He moved to support JT from behind, but when he caught sight of what was there, he felt his breath leave him. He knew to expect the whip lashes, and maybe he would’ve been prepared to see that. But this...

JT’s back was a mess of blood, but there were clear slices across his shoulder blades, drawn with such purpose that Sam wanted to hurl. In precise bloody strokes across his brother’s back was the single word _‘unworthy.’_

“Fucking unworthy, I’ll show you worthy, you’re worthy of my goddamn foot up your ass,” Sam muttered heatedly, wishing Pike hadn’t already dragged Kodos’s stunned body away so he could give it a good kick or twelve.

Both unwilling to see the damage done to JT’s back anymore and to further irritate it by supporting him, Sam shifted to the front again. “I’ll have to hold him from the front, I don’t wanna hurt his back anymore,” Sam explained when Rawlings shot him a look.

“Suit yoursel— _shit,”_ Rawlings hissed, laying eyes on JT’s back himself. He let out a short breath through his nose before nodding at Sam, “You ready?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, bracing his body in front of JT’s torso. JT dipped his forehead wordlessly onto Sam’s shoulder and Sam brought up a hand to stroke his hair soothingly. The first restraint broke and JT whimpered into his shirt as his arm fell limply to his side. Before the second restraint fell, Sam used his free hand to brace JT’s elbow so when the restraint broke, he could ease the stiff limb down.

Completely free of his binds now, JT fisted his hands in Sam’s shirt, unable to move his arms any more, and Sam held him closer and as tight as he dared without hurting him. “It’s over, JT. You’re safe, I gotcha.”

And with that final assurance, JT went limp in Sam’s arms, finally succumbing to his body’s need to rest and recover.

* * *

Sam wouldn’t let anyone near JT until they reached Sickbay, and even then once he deposited his brother on a biobed, he refused to move more than a couple feet away, just far enough to not get in the way of any doctors. He’d come in and out of consciousness for a bit, spending every bit of his waking energy trying to tell Sam where ‘Tom and his kids’ were. Finally, JT managed to say ‘boulder’ before passing out again, and Sam knew he was talking about the boulder field south of the colony. By the time JT woke next, the kids had all been found safe but not wholly sound.

All of the kids were suffering from malnutrition, but Tom was easily the worst of their group. Sam knew JT had to have a good reason for breaking into the hospital in the first place, and seeing the infected burn on Tom’s face only confirmed the thought. According to Dr. April, the _Enterprise’s_ CMO, Tom wouldn’t have lasted another day without treatment. Sam didn’t tell JT that of course, only that Tom was currently being treated a few beds away.

The other survivors were relatively much better off. A young kid named Kevin had already been treated for a sprained ankle and returned to the rest of the kids, who for now were all rooming together in one of the dignitary suites under the supervision of one of the nurses. The rest only had minor bruising and abrasions, spared from extreme sun exposure thanks to the overhanging rocks in the boulder field.

JT was recovering as well as he could, but he’d had some complications. He was suffering from an infection in the wounds on his back, though it was only setting in compared to Tom’s developed symptoms. Until they could clear the infection, they couldn’t run a dermal regen on the welts and cuts right away, and consequently JT would be stuck with those scars for the rest of his life. The burns had been recent, so those had been treated quickly, as well as the bruising and broken ribs they’d found, and the welts around his wrists.

The boys had been in Sickbay for about an hour before Sam heard the sound of someone running towards them, boots clicking on the floor as they approached—

“Sam!”

Sam had long grown out of the phase where he longed for physical affection from his mother, but the moment he laid eyes on her, his body moved on autopilot as he stood to receive her. “Mom,” he said, voice choked in an overwhelming sense of relief as she wrapped him in a tight embrace. Seeing and being with his mother had always been a sign that the pain was over, even if only for a little while, and that feeling had never rung truer than in this moment.

“Sammy, oh thank God, you’re okay,” Winona babbled into his hair, and for once he didn’t complain as she frantically moved her hands over his head as if to physically reassure herself that he was okay. “Where’s your brother, where’s Jimmy?” she asked.

Sam turned and nodded his head towards the biobed, where JT was currently sleeping soundly. The doctors had him on his side until they could repair the damage to his back, so he didn’t blame her for not recognizing the heavily bandaged back and head of his little brother.

Winona seemed unable to make a sound as she moved to the other side of the bed, where JT’s face was largely unobstructed. She sat heavily in Sam’s vacated chair as she reached out a shaking hand to lightly brush a strand of hair out of his face.

“He goes by JT now,” Sam said, unable to come up with something else to say.

“Does he?” Winona said, a sad smile forming on her face. “Oh baby, what happened to you?” she whispered, stroking JT’s cheek with the pad of her thumb.

“Did they tell you anything?” Sam asked hesitantly.

“About Tarsus or about Jimmy—JT?”

“Both, I guess.”

“The crew knows about the Massacre, and that there are security and medical teams planetside dealing with the fallout right now, but beyond that most people are in the dark. Chris commed me as soon as he could get away and told me you boys were in Sickbay, and that JT had been...imprisoned by Kodos. He didn’t tell me...what exactly happened—”

“Kodos tortured him,” Sam said, voice cracking in either anger or pain, he really didn’t know. “On live television and...in that cell.” Sam screwed his eyes shut as he felt a burning sensation build. “He’s just a kid, Mom, why would he...why would anyone—?”

Sam felt arms encircle him again and he hid his face in Winona’s shoulder as she rubbed soothing circles into his back. “The universe is filled will horrible people, sweetheart,” she said softly.

“Yeah, speaking of,” Sam burst, pulling away from Winona. “I should’ve said something years ago, but I was—it was never safe to, but now that we’re outta there I can—”

“Slow down, Sam, I don’t understand a word you’re saying—”

“Your husband is a raging lunatic,” Sam spat.

Winona recoiled a bit then her face settled into a stern frown. “Now Sam, I—”

“No, you need to hear this,” Sam said, feeling a fire build in his gut as he finally mustered the courage to say something. Sam and JT had spent far too long under the iron hand of Frank Davies. Sam had already tried to run away from him and he refused to go back if he had any say in the matter. And if he didn’t, he’d just run away again. Except this time he’d bring JT with him. He really thought JT would be alright on his own, he’d always been good at staying out of Frank’s way, but what Frank had done to him was way too far. “Have you called home at all in the last half year or so?”

“Once a month, like I always do,” Winona said promptly, still frowning. “You know that’s all I can get the secured comm lines for—”

“And did you ever wonder why JT and I were never there to talk?”

Winona looked at him searchingly, visibly trying to put the pieces together in her head. “Frank said you left for a travel program, and JT...was usually over a friend’s house...” Her voice gradually grew softer as she realized what Sam was implying.

“We’ve been on Tarsus IV for a little over six months, Mom,” Sam said, unable to look at her as the gears started turning in her head. “Frank was right when he said I left voluntarily, but that’s about it. I ran away, and he...it was complete chance JT ran into me, I dunno what he would’ve done.”

“Did he run away too?”

 _“No,_ he—Frank ditched him on a shuttle going off planet,” Sam seethed, still furious at Frank for what he had done to his brother. “JT wasn’t even conscious to do anything about it, he just woke up in a foreign environment—”

“What do you mean he wasn’t conscious?”

Sam paused, gaze snapping back to Winona’s face at the venom in her voice. Up until that moment, Sam had never really understood the mama bear analogy when it came to mothers protecting their children. He’d never seen Winona angry on behalf of her kids; the moment had never come up that Sam had been there to witness it. But in that moment, he knew why people feared a mother’s wrath.

He’d built all this momentum in his anger of Frank that the words almost fell out of his mouth, easier when on behalf of his brother rather than himself, “Frank beat the crap out of him then dumped him on a shuttle with a note explaining he was being shipped off planet until you got home. It was just luck that I happened to sneak onto the same shuttle.”

There was an intense anger burning behind Winona’s eyes, but on the whole she looked immeasurably sad and exhausted. She sat in the nearest chair, pulling Sam down to sit adjacent with her as she kept a firm grip on his hand. “How long?” was all she asked, and Sam knew that she’d made the connection, that it wasn’t just that moment, that it wasn’t just JT. She knew the reason why he’d run in the first place.

Sam opened his mouth to respond, but his voice caught in the back of his throat. When had it started? He couldn’t remember a life without Frank in it, he’d been a family friend before his father’s death so he’d always been around, but when had the change occurred that turned him into the monster under the bed? He hadn’t always been so angry and volatile, and yet Sam had a hard time thinking of when it all went bad. There had been no switch flipped suddenly, but Sam couldn’t pinpoint the moment when snide comments turned into verbal abuse, or rough handling turned into bruises and broken bones.

Sam’s hesitance seemed to be all the answer Winona needed. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked softly, voice laced only in compassion.

“We couldn’t say anything over the comms, not with him there,” Sam said, thinking back to all the times when Frank had been hovering out of frame whenever the boys had the chance to talk with their mother. “And he always laid off in the weeks before you got home, so there was never any proof, and it would’ve just been our word against his—”

“George Samuel Kirk, I want you to listen to me right now,” Winona said, cutting him off with an intense look. “I am your mother, I will always listen to anything you have to say, and I will always be on your side, no matter what. You got that?”

Sam nodded, but before he had the chance to say anything, a sound from the bed behind them caught their attention. Winona gave Sam’s hand a quick squeeze before rushing back to the chair next to JT’s bed, and Sam followed on her heels, hovering behind her. While JT was slowly becoming more lucid after every waking moment, he still wanted to be in his line of sight in case he was confused about his surroundings.

Winona returned her hand to JT’s face, rubbing it softly with her thumb as JT moved closer and closer to consciousness. He seemed to be responding positively to the attention until Winona’s nail brushed his skin accidentally. JT flinched away from the hand as his eyes shot open, and Winona withdrew her hand like she’d been burned.

It took a moment for JT to register where he was, but soon enough he relaxed as he recognized Winona and Sam behind her. “Mom?” he croaked. “What’re you doin’ here?”

“You’re on the _Enterprise,_ sweetheart,” she replied softly, trying to avoid unintentionally spooking him again.

“Oh yeah,” JT mumbled, and Sam was glad that JT was finally starting to retain earlier conversations. “How’s Tom?”

“Resting, but he’s doing better,” Sam said. Winona looked like she wanted to ask who Tom was, but Sam gave her a silent look that he’d explain later. “The other kids are doing fine, they fixed up Kevin’s ankle good as new.”

“Good,” JT breathed, looking far more relaxed in the knowledge that his friends were safe.

They spent most of JT’s time awake filling him in on various updates, such as his own medical progress and the progress of the teams planetside. It was some time during this that LCDR Pike showed up, an indecipherable look on his face.

“Commander,” Winona greeted upon noticing him, subconsciously straightening in her seat.

Pike shook his head, “Chris is fine for this, Winnie. This isn’t strictly an official visit, but you three should hear this.” He took a breath, and immediately Sam was nervous about whatever he was about to tell them. “I’ve got...news for you,” he said stiffly. “The shuttle that was transporting Kodos to the _Enterprise_ experienced a malfunction upon takeoff and crashlanded planetside. There were no survivors.”

“So Kodos is dead,” Sam said flatly, aware and mournful of the Starfleet officers who’d died but wholly uncaring of Kodos’s fate. He deserved worse.

Pike looked uncomfortable at Sam’s statement. “Officially yes, but what the report won’t read is that they haven’t found a body. It was an explosive crash so it’s not wholly uncommon, however we were able to recover the bodies of the other passengers.”

“So he might be alive,” JT whispered, staring blankly at his hands.

“It’s highly unlikely,” Pike mollified, “but I figured you deserved the truth even if it won’t be reported.”

“Why’d they use a shuttle in the first place?” Sam asked. “We were brought up through the transporter—”

“Transporters are being restricted to medical personnel only at the moment,” Pike said. “It wasn’t feasible to wait, so they sent a shuttle down. The black box hasn’t been recovered yet either, so we’re not sure exactly what happened to bring it down.

“Thank you,” JT muttered softly. “For telling us the truth.” Pike nodded and gave one last look towards Winona, that probably meant they had more to discuss but on Starfleet time, before taking his leave. Sam shared a look with Winona before turning his attention back to JT, only to find that he’d passed out again.

Sam sighed. The nightmare was supposed to be over, and while he was grateful Pike had been open with them, likely against orders, there was a large part of him that would’ve preferred to assume Kodos had perished in that crash.

* * *

A week had passed since the _Enterprise_ had arrived to Tarsus IV, and they were just now departing as other Federation ships arrived to relieve them. Over the course of that time, JT had been released from Sickbay with orders to return every afternoon for wound redressings. Under normal circumstances, JT might not have wanted to obey that order, but every time he went was a chance to visit with Tom, who was still being held for observation.

Winona had been busy over the week. She’d spared no time in contacting a lawyer, not just to divorce Frank, but to also have him arrested with human trafficking charges. With help from some of the Enterprise crew, they’d already dredged up the transcripts and documentation necessary to prove his transgressions. They’d have to wait until they got back to Earth, but they’d also be filing child neglect and abuse charges. Luckily they were able to apprehend him solely on the trafficking charges, with no chance of bail. Sometimes there were perks to being the family of George Kirk.

Sam had taken time to contact Deval and Asher and let them know what happened and where he was. He found out from them that the TALP was being dissolved and all students were being sent home. The whole colony was set to abandon the planet actually, but the school program had chosen to close rather than relocate.

JT spent a lot of time with his fellow survivors, and Sam tried to give him space, but he found himself hovering more often than not, partly to support JT and partly to remind himself that JT was there and safe. He’ll never forget how he felt over those couple days where he thought he’d lost his little brother, and he wasn’t about to let that happen again.

It was around dinner time when Sam couldn’t find JT, not even with the other kids. He’d wandered throughout all the common spaces with no luck until he finally asked the ship’s onboard computer to run a personnel search.

Sam found JT exactly where the computer said he was: on the lower Observation Deck. JT was sitting cross-legged on the floor, face mesmerized by stream of pinpoint lights that soared past.

“Hey kiddo, it’s dinner time,” Sam said, announcing his presence.

JT jumped a bit but settled when he noticed it was Sam. “I’m not hungry,” he said, looking back out the window.

Any other time Sam would snark that JT was always hungry, and probably mention the time JT had eaten an entire pizza on his own just so Sam couldn’t have any, but he knew those kind of jokes wouldn’t be appropriate right now. Or maybe never again.

“I guess the stars are cooler than replicated food anyway,” Sam said instead, moving to sit next to his brother, intentionally bumping his knee on the way down. “How long’ve you been down here?”

JT shrugged, glancing at him. “A couple hours, maybe.”

Sam frowned, wondering if a couple hours really meant since breakfast, the last time he’d seen him, which likely meant he hadn’t eaten lunch either. “Look, JT—”

“Don’t call me JT,” he said softly, looking away from Sam.

“Tired of that name already?” Sam asked lightly, embracing the diversion in the conversation. “You’ve only had it for a couple months.”

“A really shitty few months,” JT muttered. That wasn’t wholly true, Sam mused silently. That last week had been hell in a handbasket, but until then it hadn’t been anything worse than Riverside. Sam knew better than to vocalize such thoughts after everything that happened. “And I keep...I keep hearing _him_ say it,” he admitted, and Sam rested a comforting hand on his knee, forcing the bile back in his own throat. _That_ made a whole lot more sense. Sam knew he’d be having nightmares for years just from witnessing the few minutes he had with Kodos and his little brother, but JT would have to live with so much worse. “I can’t—I don’t—”

“So what do you want me to call you?” Sam asked abruptly, eager to steer his brother away from such toxic memories.

JT was silent for a moment, continuing to watch the stars sail past the viewport. Sam wasn’t sure he would answer until he set his own hand over Sam’s. “Call me Jim.”

**Author's Note:**

> A couple minor notes:  
> 1\. SEERS: Starfleet Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (based on the US Navy's DEERS). As dependents of a Starfleet officer, Sam and Jim would both have SEERS cards or simply a number.
> 
> 2\. While in TOS Sam goes by 'George' usually and Jim is the only one who calls him 'Sam,' I like to think that in AOS, Sam would prefer to be called 'Sam' by everyone, to distance the association with his father. Not because he's ashamed or anything, but he wants to be his own person. Winona respects this and calls him Sam, but with the fame of their family, most people who are unacquainted with Sam know of him as George, hence his stumble when giving his name.
> 
> 3\. Despite his being a Lieutenant Commander, Winona calls Pike "Commander" because this is an acceptable form of address in informal settings. Less syllables and all :) Like how you wouldn't call a Cadet First Class the full title in conversation, you'd just say Cadet.
> 
> Thanks for reading everyone! As I said, the full branches of this fic will be available for you eventually, but for now I hope you enjoyed this path.
> 
> I will say this: relatively, this story could have ended better, but it also could have been much worse. You'll have to see if you can steer Jim to a better ending ;)
> 
> Feedback is always appreciated!


End file.
